It took Giovanni Scelzi more than four months to pick up his first victory under the Spire Motorsports banner — a monumental $100,000 score in the July 26 Bob Weikert Memorial at Port Royal Speedway.

His second victory, however, didn’t take nearly as long — precisely 11 days, coming in his very next appearance in Thursday’s preliminary night of the 36th annual Xtream powered by Mediacom Knoxville Nationals at Knoxville Raceway. 

He led all 20 laps for a 2.5-second victory over fellow High Limit Racing campaigner and 360 Nationals high-point driver through Thursday in Aaron Reutzel.

“Great job to my guys, too — Eric (Prutzman), Cole (Neuhalfen) and Kinzer (Dussel) have been doing an incredible job. From Port two weeks ago to here is a big step and a lot of work done,” Scelzi said in Knoxville victory lane.

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The 24-year-old Scelzi caught the invert just right to land the pole — the top-20 transfers in the 360 Nationals are lined up by qualifying time, with the top eight inverted — and turned the favorable starting spot into a breezy flag-to-flag victory in the split-field program. His 13th-fastest qualifying time among the 53-car field and fourth-to-second push in his heat race did the job.

Scelzi, the 2021 360 Nationals winner, led by as much as 2.9 seconds and was rarely challenged. He found the bottom from the start and made it work to perfection.

“The middle got really dirty there early in the race. I didn’t realize the bottom would come in there that fast,” Scelzi said. “I saw Chris (Martin) run it in the B-main — it looked like he was pretty stuck down there. Hit it in the first corner wide open, and I was like, ‘Wow, I hope it’s that way in three and four.’”

It was. Scelzi made the bottom work through both corners, with his only real threat coming when Kyle Larson pulled within four-tenths of a second on lap 11 amid traffic. A lap later, Scelzi pushed the advantage back beyond one second before the race’s lone caution flew on lap 13 for John Carney.

From there, he used single-file restarts — plus a 360 engine from Washington-based standout Trey Starks — to his advantage.

“Single-file restarts help, right? There’s no games. It’s a lot easier to start when you’re single file,” Scelzi said. “Thank you, Trey Starks. Thank you to the Starks family. Their second baby is due here soon. It was cool to use their motor and win with it.”

Scelzi’s victory puts him fifth in the event standings with 473 points entering Friday’s preliminary night, which features another 50-plus-car split field of drivers who’ve yet to run their prelim. He's hoping it's good enough to at least start him within the first five rows of Saturday's main event.

“Probably have a couple beers tonight,” he added. “Maybe not so many tomorrow. ... We had to win, really, to be anywhere decent in points on Saturday. Great job to my guys.”

360 Knoxville Nationals Thursday Results at Knoxville Raceway