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Feb 7th 2004 - Buena Park Raceway

 Buena Park Raceway Buena Park, Ca Feb 7, 2004

It’s back to Buena Park for round 2 and as usual Chris has the coffee ready as we walked in the back door.

Spray Glue G-12
The early heats were real close with 3 racers tied after 3 heats and a 4th racer only 1 back. But as the race began to take shape, it was pretty clear that Sam Rackham was the class of the field. Sam moved into the lead on the average in heat 3 and led the rest of the way. JB Barnett ran in 2nd until his car let him down in the final heat, letting Bill Taylor move up to 2nd with Brian Johnson taking the final podium spot. JB would drop all the way to 4th ahead of Evan McKee, Rick Elting, Bryan Struck, Bob Johannis and Mike Stuart.

Group 12
This was to be another Jim Swofford benefit. Jim led from start to finish with Sam Rackham running in 2nd. Dale Garcia took 3rd ahead of Rick Elting, Bob Johannis, Bryan Struck in his first glue race and Bill Pinkston.

Cobalt 12
A massive field of 5 entries turned out including surprise entrant, Gary Mayeda from Arizona. Sam Rackham ripped off a 71 on blue to take the lead while Gary would be the first to let the smoke out of his motor. Sam led the first 6 heats with Pat Ularte taking over in heat 7. Sam’s motor went up about ½ way through the final heat, but held onto 2nd ahead of Phil Larcom, Gary Mayeda and Jim Swofford. The assembled “hoard” of 5 lost 6 motors between them.

One Motor Open
Forrest Watchers put his stamp on this one early. Forrest took the lead on the average in heat 2 and led the rest of the way. Tore Anderson ran 2nd early but his car failed and Bill Pinkston moved into 2nd ahead of Jim Swofford, Tore, Mike Graverson, Rick Elting, Phil Larcom, Robert Park and Pat Ularte.

Group 7
Forrest won the 1st heat running on the red lane and it was pretty much over. Forrest ran 8 heats all over 130 laps and took an 83 lap win over Jim Swofford, Mike Graverson, Phil Larcom, Pat Ularte, Gil Gunderson and Randy Thompson.

Track Calls:
Where did all the C-12 racers go? Last month we had a vote to decide if we should change this to a sprayglue race to entice more cobalt entries. Of the 5 entries, 2 of them did not participate in the vote. Where did the rest of you get to? You wanted to have this event as a glue race, “so we can practice for the Nat’s”. Silly me, I thought that the purpose of the SoCal chapter of the USRA was to control and improve racing for all the racers in our area, not to provide a practice session for a particular segment of racers. If you want to have the race your way, then race, or let the people who want to race in spray glue have a go at it and let’s see if we can do something to grow the cobalt classes.