Buttonwillow Raceway

My boss is a racer and general racing fanatic, which is great being a mechanical engineer because your car is always so much better than everyone elses.... JK that's far from it. Anyway he sent out a mass email stating that he was going to be racing the upcoming weekend and I planned to be there to get some photos of the cars in action! It was a great day for some racing and Parish was brave enough to come hang out awhile with me while I took my 650 photos of the cars racing around the track. Instead of boring you with most of the details of the day we will get right to it!

Here are some of the upper end cars getting ready to head out on the track.

If anyone says that wrecks and spin outs aren't one of the most exciting things that can happen at a race they are flat out liars. I got this one drifting which turned into some off-roading on the grass. Luckily, everyone who spun out that day was perfectly fine.

Getting back on after his mistake.

Drifter #2.

This one almost had a head on with one of the formula looking cars but they averted the crisis.

Taking off to the track from the hot pit.

Some of the classier cars were just as fun to look at sitting still as they were racing around the track at 140 mph.

These two were part of the driving class that was offered at the raceway. I'm sure it was a pretty penny, but just might be worth getting in a RX-7 Racer.

This isn't your average cougar. Dressed with a V8 and supercharger it was keeping with the Porsche's on the straights without hesitation.

There were all kinds of racers there. Even 4-doors.

Corvettes were abundant here, but why wouldn't they be?

One the back side of the track there was a tricky hill section which got the best out of a couple racers. The OB areas of this track were very forgiving fortunately. No cliffs or what not. :P

More Vettes.

This Porsche GT3 tore it up. Doesn't look it, but the fastest car in this race by far. He must have spent all the money on the stuff that mattered and not the exterior.

...Yeah more Vettes. This one was right on the Porsche's heels most of the race.

Baring the spin out and throwing dirt everywhere after the first turn (which was pretty cool), this guy could hold his own as well. One of the flashiest as far as looks are concerned.

My boss's class is SRF and all cars have tight specs that must be followed. It's the most "equal" of all groups present.

This is the boss.

He did pretty well for most of the track. On one of the hairpin turns he hit some cones which slowed him down but maintained his position. After the first turn he had to brake on he realized that something was wrong, since the car was wanting to turn left when he was braking. He was having trouble slowing for the turns but he rode out the race anyway. The result of his malfunctions was dropping a couple positions unfortunately.

After getting back to the trailer and looking the car over he found that one of the cones he had run over got caught in his front-right brake caliper and was preventing the brakes from working fully. We had a good laugh about it at work today, and he kept the cone as a trophy.