Gelažninkas started motocross at the age of eight and assembled an extensive record in Lithuanian domestic competition across multiple classes and decades. He won the 65cc Lithuanian championship in 1995, the 80cc title in 1996 and 1998, and the 125cc championship in 2001, 2002, and 2004. He represented Lithuania in the Motocross of Nations in 2000 and again in 2011, the premier international team event in the discipline.
From 2005, Gelažninkas competed in the United Kingdom, training there and racing in the British Motocross Championship, where he finished fifth in the British Masters class. He also participated in FIM Motocross World Championship events in the MX1 and MX3 categories during various periods of his career.
From 2013, Gelažninkas redirected much of his competitive effort toward enduro and cross-country rally racing. He won the Lithuanian cross-country E2 title in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and the Lithuanian enduro E2 championship in 2014 and 2015. He also claimed the Latvian enduro E2 title in 2014 and placed second in the Baltic Enduro E2 class in 2014 and 2015.
In 2016 he added a further Lithuanian enduro E2 class victory. In 2017 he won the Lithuanian enduro E1 title. His most productive European campaign came in 2018, when he won the Baltic Cross Country Enduro championship, the Lithuanian Cross Country Enduro championship, the Lithuanian Enduro E2 title, the Baltic Enduro Rally championship, and the Balkan Off-road Rally championship, also finishing third at Baja Poland.
In 2019, Gelažninkas won the Tuareg Rally outright. The same year he entered the Dakar Rally for the first time, finishing 24th in the motorcycle category as a rookie. He returned to the Dakar in 2020 (30th overall) and 2021.
The Original by Motul category — known in earlier editions as Malle Moto — is the Dakar's self-sufficiency class. Competitors receive no mechanical assistance throughout the event; they carry all their tools and spare parts, service their own machines each night at the bivouac, and complete every stage on the same motorcycle they prepared themselves. The class demands a combination of riding skill, mechanical competence, strategic pacing, and physical resilience across two weeks and thousands of kilometres.
In 2021, Gelažninkas won the Original by Motul category outright, finishing 21st in the overall motorcycle standings. His approach during the critical stages was methodical: pace himself through the most difficult terrain, ensure arrival at the bivouac by 11 pm, and plan the following day's stage while still racing. On Stage 9 — one of the most technically demanding of the 2021 edition — he navigated a challenging riverbed section where other notable competitors, including Toby Price, had crashed or become delayed. Missing waypoints at one point during the stage added time pressure, but Gelažninkas recovered to maintain his position in the Original by Motul standings. He became the first Lithuanian in Dakar history to claim a category win.
Gelažninkas returned to the Dakar in 2022 and successfully defended his Original by Motul title, becoming the first rider to win the category in consecutive years. He finished 28th in the overall motorcycle standings that year.
He subsequently adapted his Dakar participation to include navigating: in 2024 he finished 9th in the side-by-side category as a navigator, and in 2025 he completed the Dakar in 32nd position in motorcycles.
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