Drivers Education - Buttonwillow Raceway

Story by Bob Bruington

The Drivers Education track event at Buttonwillow Raceway, held, May 5th, is completed and according to the participants, was a success! It’s not very often we have cool weather this time of year at Buttonwillow, we have had temperatures over a 100 degrees in previous years. The Raceway located near Bakersfield, surprised us all this year with cool weather all weekend. When we arrived Thursday afternoon, the temperatures were in the sixties with a little light rain falling. Friday morning, the day of our event, started cloudy and cool, but warmed to about 75 in the afternoon, delightful for driving on the closest race track to our area.

We had sixty-five drivers for our event on Friday, a little smaller field than what we would like, but there is an advantage to driving on a racetrack with less cars around you. Our beginner group had only eleven drivers, the intermediate only fourteen. Everyone had plenty of open track to play with. Thanks to the stringent safety standards required by PCA and the cooperation of the drivers, I am grateful to report, we had no incidents on or off the track.

The instructors for our beginner group were fantastic as always. When I started instructing, years ago, most students had older, less powerful cars, very few with traction control and other aids. It was fairly easy to get in a car with a novice driver on a track going nine or ninety miles per hour. At today’s events, students come in with four hundred plus horse powered cars with driving aids, going hundred and fifteen on the track. To have confidence in your student staying on track, driving under control, takes a lot of bravery to say the least. Without these dedicated people, we would not be able to introduce new drivers to the sport of day tracking. Thank you instructors for your time and expertise!!

We did have one snafu for the weekend. CCCR had a dinner planned at the track for Thursday evening, with 31 people signed up to attend. The Café had the wrong date scheduled. I did not catch it, so we had thirty one people who had to find another place to eat dinner that night, not easy at the Buttonwillow truck stop. Everyone was very understanding and gracious. We did have a buffet lunch set up Friday to make up for the error. The Cafe put on a fantastic spread, I think everyone was happy with the result. Sometimes even the best laid plans go off track! Give me a Black Flag!

I always am grateful for the support we get from our members and outside crews at the track. The corner workers we hire, are major contributors to a safe and a timely event. They are responsible for telling the drivers on the track what is happening behind and in front of them on the track, using a dozen flags and signals. They also run the schedule we give them, putting cars on and off the track in a specific time schedule. To that crew, we supply a Black Flag Station chief. Alfred Abken of our club, voted

Photos by Alfred Abken

the Enthusiast of the Year by PCA Zone 8, has been our Black Flag Station Chief since I started to run the DE. For those who do not know, if you as driver do something wrong on the track, you will be given a Black Flag by one of the corner workers. You are required to see Alfred at the Black Flag Station, where you will explain what you did wrong and how you will correct the problem. In some cases, if you have driven off track into the dirt, Alfred will check your car for damage and debris. Other members who give their time freely, are our Region’s President, “Get here early” Joe Shubitowski, the ever-present and most helpful Bill Deviny, our Grid Master John Beccera, and his Grid workers, CCCR Board members Mark Shilling, Andy Winterbottom, Chuck Jennings, Bill Chadwick, Jeff Bartel and volunteers Mark Torcaso, Sonny Brown, David Mellish and Bruce Morgenthaler. Driving and working the event makes for a very full day. Thank you all for your time and efforts!! If anyone ever wants to help with the driving events, please contact me, we would love to add you to the list of volunteers.

A few of our drivers stayed for the next day or two for the Golden Gate Region DE and Club race on Saturday and Sunday. GGR always runs a fantastic event and it is fun to watch the Club Racers go wheel to wheel. We do have support for our event from GGR. This year we had fourteen drivers from GGR run in our event. Many drivers come from the Club Racers, who want to practice during our event on Friday. This relationship between our two regions has been going on for at least 10 years at Buttonwillow every year, we hope to continue with that relationship for years to come.

Our next DE will be on the newly renovated track at the iconic Laguna Seca on August 25th. We are looking forward to seeing the improvements and testing out the new track surface. This is a Friday with a 92db sound limit. You can register now at MotorsportReg.com, type CCCR Laguna Seca DE Aug 2023, in the search bar. If you want to experience dropping in on the Corkscrew or driving though the Andretti Curve at a slower more relaxed speed, we will run the Parade Lap at Laguna Seca at noon again. This has become very popular the last few years. You can register at MotorsportReg.com, just type in CCCR Laguna Seca Parade Lap in the search bar.

We are still waiting on the new second track at Buttonwillow for our Fall DE. The track work is moving along, but very slowly. Cross your fingers that it will be completed late this summer.