He said he was ready to leave at the end of 2000 if team owner Alan Johnson hadn't secured a new sponsor.

"I'd like to leave this thing on top of my game. And if it happens to be at the end of 2000," he had said by the Nationals, "then that's the way it's going to be. If I leave in 2001, I'm not coming back. I'm not going to stay out a year then come back the following year. Either we keep this thing going, hopefully for another three years, and I can finish my career. Otherwise, if we don't have a deal, then I'm walking and not coming back."

Scelzi wasn't kidding. He wouldn't have made a commitment to NHRA racing in 2002 without the promise of fresh funding.

"We could come up with enough money to run the car. But that's not how you win championships. And I'm not here not to win championships," he said.

"I'm not tired yet. The circumstances have to be right, though. I can't go get in a car, knowing that we've got enough stuff to go a couple of rounds and then we've got to save and hold back. I won't do that," Scelzi said.

"I've done that my whole racing career until I got here (with Johnson), and I'm spoiled.

"I don't want to show that we can do this as independents. I've already eaten beans and rice and had holes in my pants. I'm not going back to that."

Or retiring to an easy chair somebody else already broke in.

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