Buena Park Raceway 6161 Lincoln ave. , Buena Park , CA 
714-827-9979   Raceway website
Spray glue boxstock, boxstock, Cobalt 12, One motor open and Group 7  on Saturday June 2nd. 

We returned to the home of the Y2K Nats for round 6 and as usual, Chris had the track well prepared and good supply of the breakfast of choice for slot car racers everywhere, donuts and coffee were on hand.

Spray Glue Box Stock

The first class of the day was for SoCal’s spray glue box stock. Darryl Atkins made the 11-hour drive from Elko pay off by with a lap of 2.73 and taking the 7 points for TQ. Bill Pinkston and Rick Elting were 2^nd and 3^rd.

One again, an overflow field of 11 entries was on hand and Lenore set up the computer for a round robin race. Sam Rackham, Jason Holmes and Bill Taylor were the early leaders, with Rick Elting adding himself to the mix in heat 2. Bill Pinkston was in next and took over the lead on the average. Top Qualifier Darryl Atkins was in next and slipped in just behind Pinkston but was unable to keep up the pace and slowly dropped out of contention. Bill Taylor and Bill Pinkston separated themselves from the field and swapped the lead several times until the 11^th and final heat when Taylor got involved in a bunch of wrecks in the 1^st minute and broke his gear, dropping him all the way to 5^th. Pinkston went on to win by 13 over Sam Rackham and 16 over Rick Elting. David Aikins, Bill Taylor, Jason Holmes, Darryl Atkins, Jimmy Barnett, Cliff Kendrick, Alan Trujillo and John Giordano were the other finishers.

Box Stock

We had 11 racers present cars for tech inspection and qualifying. Spray Glue Box Stock winner, Bill Pinkston picked up the 7 TQ points with a lap of 2.65. Rick Elting and Jason Holmes were next.

A quartet of Tuesday night regulars quickly separated themselves from the field with Jason Holmes and Sam Rackham swapping the lead a couple of times in the early heats. Meanwhile Bill Taylor and Rick Elting were staying and swapping the 3^rd place until Sam had problems, elevating Bill and Rick’s battle into a fight for 2^nd. Jason held on to win by 2 over Bill and 9 over Rick. Sam, Darryl Atkins, David Aikens, Alan Trujillo, Cliff Kendrick and Bill Pinkston were the other finishers.

Cobalt 12

Another overflow field of 10 cars was signed in for the C-12 race. Scale racer, Gil Rivera TQ’ed with a lap of 2.31. Chuck Frederick and Randy Thompson were 2^nd and 3^rd.

Bill Taylor was the leader through the first 4 heats. Gil Rivera was in for heat 3 and took over the lead in heat 5 while Bill was in his second sit out. Bill dropped from contention with body damage on red leaving Gil in charge. Rich Humphrey had spent his race quietly holding 3^rd spot just a few laps back. Rich was back in for heat 8 and started running some good numbers to start the final heat just 3 laps behind Gil. Gil’s motor slowed and he could only manage 63 laps. Rich ran a 69 to win the race by 3 laps over Gil. Mike Graverson picked up the other podium spot. Phil Larcom overcame some early heat problems to pick up the 4^th place by sections ahead of Randy Thompson. Wendell Smith, Bill Taylor, Darryl Atkin and Jason Holmes were the other finishers.

One Motor Open

We had a full field of 8 racers with Connie "TQ" Aloise running the fast time of 1.98. Gil Gunderson and Pat Ularte followed.

The race started with Gil and Pat running perfect heats on yellow and purple. Pat moved into the lead in heat 3 and put it away with a 102 on orange. Pat led the rest of the way with Gil finishing 20 laps back. Connie picked up the last podium spot with Jason Holmes, Mike Graverson, Alan Trujillo, Bill Taylor and Darryl Atkin following up.

Group 7

It may have been a small field, but it got pretty interesting at the end of the race. None of the 5 entries qualified and we let the computer select the lanes. Carlos led from the start followed by Forrest Watchers and Tore Anderson. Forrest had problems and dropped from contention. Tore stayed close and moved to within 9 laps of Carlos. But Carlos reached into the magic drawer and pulled out a bullet. Carlos stretched his lead out to 43 laps after 7 heats and it looked like another runaway victory. With about 1:17 left in the race, Carlos’ car made a noise on the straight and stopped in the bank. We did a good guy track call and when Carlos picked up his car he found a blown comm. We turned the power back on and Tore smelled blood, but it was going to be close. Tore gripped his Ruddick a bit tighter, leaned into the track a bit further and drove his car into the corner harder. With about 30 seconds left Jason started to count the laps down 10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…new leader! Five seconds later the power went off and Tore received a nice round of applause for his win. Carlos held onto second. Mike Graverson, Forrest Watchers and Phil Larcom were the other finishers.

Track Calls

The boys from Elko are starting to make the 11 and 12 hour drives to our races worth while. Darryl picked up his first USRA TQ points in the Spray Glue race. It won’t be long before they start showing up on the podium.

Jason had to pull out of the C-12 race. When he went for a motor change, he realized he had lent out all his backups. Including the eventual race winner!

Also in the C-12 race, Bill Taylor’s car actually caught on fire when the arm slung a wire.

Tore’s win in the Group 7 race was one of the more popular wins in SoCal in some time. As the race ended, everybody in the store applauded his effort.