If you don't think slant6 racing isn't popular out "West" you should have been at Redding raceway this past weekend! On Friday, the racetrack opened up just for the slant-6 group and let them in to set up early under the big shaded Oak trees. Glenn Terry and Oscar Steelman from Fresno picked out the best spot and Glenn had his new made "Slant Six Racing - Killer Bees" sign out on his camper .
Our group from Chico with 3 cars in tow showed up early on Sat. The track promoter had made arrangements for just our slant6 cars to also get in early as racing didn't start until after 12:00. Right behind us was Paul Olds with his car pulling a neat little "teardrop" camping trailer. Behind Paul was new racer Randy Judge who purchased one of Doug race motors. A few minutes later, here comes Doug and Allen Dutra with two more cars and first time racer Dan Ochs (Whalemaster) with his neat slant-6 powered van. ( a real crowd pleaser) which now made our group ten slant6 cars. This is the most we have ever had and we all were in "awe" and couldn't believe the turnout! Our shaded oak spot was full of slant6 cars, slant6 racers, families, friends, tents, lawn chairs, spare tires, BBQ's and ice chests. This was only at 10:00 am....We started to tech and looked up and there was a caravan for four more slant6 cars all on trailers pulling into the pit area. Alll first time racers and all new cars.
WE NOW HAD 15 SLANT6 CARS...
Our previous race schedule was to run intermixed with the Inliner club on Saturday and only slant6 cars on Sunday. The Inliner group could only muster 2 cars so we had a field of 17 on Saturday. A anonymous donor put up the first place only $$ and two trophies were also offered.. and off we went. After the day was over, my little 65' Signet "the grey ghost" was the only car standing. They say a blind pig sometimes finds an acorn...that was my first win ever so needless to say, I will be back at Redding again next year.
On Sunday, we started time trials around 9:00 am with 14 slant6 racers.
This made a good bracket and with our own "reserved" lanes we were able to start early. After the first bracket was over, some of the favorites were already on their trailers. Aric Erickson, with his fast 12 sec "Swingin' Six" red lighted against Oscar and Doug took out my "Grey Ghost" with a .001 reaction time and near perfect dial in. Son Allen was right behind taking out any "on comers" with his also near perfect .003 light. Mike Williams with his group of four cars had his girl friend driving one of his cars and she took out another first time racer, David Erickson who was breaking in his neat 1934 Plymouth coupe using Aric's passed down race motor. David ran a best of 14.60 which was fantastic as this was a "shakedown" run using one-wheel drive 3:23 gearing. This car will be around alot and it will surely run in the 13's very soon. What a rare and neat combination. There will be a article writtne by Seymour about this car in upcoming slant6 racing news.
Very quietly, Oscar was winning round after round and so were both father-son combo of the Dutras. Doug had that Lancer running better than I had ever seen and Allen just kept getting better and better on the lights with their 66 Dart wagon "toe car". Long time racer, Glenn Terry with his new Yellow "killer bee motiff" Dart was also knocking them off. That left Glenn to run against Allen, and Doug against Oscar for the final pairing. Glenn had some fuel pump problems and again, Oscar ran his numbers. Final pairing: Oscar against Allen..
Allen got a little too agressive on the starting lights (red) and let Oscar have his FIRST WIN EVER...
What a fantastic weekend of great slant6 racing. Doug will have photos up soon and a follow up on my "ramblings". Now we need to get some sort of financial support to help these racers offset the expenses they all put out to go "slant6 racing". Thanks to Ron Parker for getting the ball rolling. More on this later. Thanks Ron..and Thanks all for the help making this and future slant6 racing a reality here in California. Wayne/Aric
(lucky for me, I just had water in the cooling system, with the Redding heat and low humidity, I think most of the water evaporated before it even hit the track!) 
