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Buena Park Raceway Buena Park,
CA Jan 10, 2004
It’s a new year, do you know where
your slot cars are? It’s the first of seven races this year at Chris
and Lenore”s Buena Park Raceway. The track was packed all day long
with Chris having scheduled the wing car group, a big drag race
on Saturday night and the TSRF Marconi charity race on Sunday.
Spray Glue G-12
It’s 9AM and it’s
tech time for the first race of the 2004 series. We had 12 racers
sign up for what would be our largest class of the day. Not to bad
for a class the G/W’s tried to get killed off because it interferes
with their practice. Their words not mine.
JB Barnett started on the orange
lane and led the race for the first 2 heats on the average and then
went to the sit out. Bill Taylor was in for heat 2 and dropped in
behind JB and then took over the lead on the average in heat 4.
JB returned in heat 7 and had problems getting around on both red
and green and dropping behind Joe Chevy, Chris Radisich and Monty
Ohren, who had the deep sit out. Joe broke a gear on green and lost
12 laps leaving Chris with what looked like a clear 2nd and a possible
run at Bill who was done and watching the final 3 heats. But it
was not to be. They turned Chris’ purple lane into a parking lot
for the final heat and Monty came through for 2nd leaving Chris
with 3rd. JB survived his mid race problems and picked up 4th ahead
of Joe Chevy, Cliff Kendrick, Rick Elting, Brian Johnson, Evan McKee,
Bryan Struck (in his first USRA event) Bob Johannis and Mike Stuart.
G-12
There were only 5 racers
signing up and nobody felt like qualifying so we let the computer
pick the lanes and we were off. Let’s think about this for
a second. Jim Swofford was in this race. Can you guess who won?
You guys are so smart. Jim, wire to wire with only a small hiccup
at the very end. Jim had car problems at the end of the last heat
allowing Rick Elting to get the gap down to single digits. But it
wasn’t that easy for Rick. Rick and Dale Garcia traded 2nd spot
several times during the race until Dale had problems on black and
was forced to settle for 3rd ahead of Bill Pinkston, Chris Radisich
and Bob Johannis
G-27
WOW!!! Three entries. Maybe
they can do better next time. Once again nobody felt like qualifying,
so they decided to let the fastest lap stand for the 7 points and
it was off to the races. After leading on red, Randy broke on green
and dropped 33 laps to Jim Swofford. But then he went to work taking
back a few laps here and a few laps there, until heat 7 when Jim
lost a motor and Randy moved back into the lead. Score it Randy
(TQ 2.186 on orange), Jim and Pat Ularte. Hey guys, say thank you
to the spray glue racers for doing most of the marshalling.
One Motor Open
There were 10 racers
for this event and another of every one’s favorite events, a round
robin. The race started with Forrest Watchers taking a slim lead
ahead of Tore Anderson. Tore would move past Forrest and into the
lead on the average in heat 6. Unfortunately, Forrest had problems
in heat 7 and was only able to run a 50 on white. At this point
Bill Pinkston was starting to show some serious speed and turned
the race high heat of 113 laps on blue and then moved into the lead
in heat 9. But Bill was going to finish the race on black and Tore
would be on yellow. Tore ran Bill down and took the win by 2 laps
with Robert Park taking the final podium spot. Jim Swofford, Phil
Larcom, Forrest Watchers, Mike Graverson, Randy Thompson, Rick Elting
and Pat Ularte all trailed with various issues.
Group 7
We picked up 7 racer for
this event and just like the 12 and 27 races, nobody cared about
qualifying, so it straight to the racing. Randy Thompson jumped
out to lead the early heats, building a lead of 24 laps over Forrest
Watchers and Mike Graverson after 4 heats. Heat 5 saw Randy move
to blue and at that point he began to struggle and Forrest started
to close. These 2 moved into the final heat just 5 laps apart. Forrest
made his move and it was a mighty move running 141 laps and a lap
of 1.968 sec. for TQ on orange. But Randy ran a perfect heat and
he needed it with Forrest moving to within ½ lap at the end. Mike
Graverson took third 41 laps behind them. Pat Ularte, Gil Gunderson,
Phil Larcom and Jim Swofford were the other runners.
Track Calls.
The executive board
had noticed that the Group 7 class had good turnouts at the Buena
Park events last year and with most of this years schedule being
at BP, they decided to pull G7 out of the cobalt rotation and run
it every month. This month, on what we can call short notice, we
had 7 entries. A perfectly respectable turnout for this class. And
there are a couple of others who will be running the class occasionally.
A special thanks to Brian Struck
and his dad Phil. Brian has just started racing with us on Tuesday
night and this was his first USRA race. What I want to thank them
for was the turn marshalling. If Brian wasn’t racing, he was marshalling.
Phil, who doesn’t race, volunteered and I saw him do a couple of
races in the dead man. Thanks guys. I think the cobalt racers owe
you!
Nobody felt like qualifying this
month and we got the spray glue race started almost on time so we
were done, the track cleaned and out shortly after 10PM. Not bad
for running an extra race.
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