A new era has begun at Buttonwillow Raceway Park (BRP) in California’s Central Valley, and the Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA® Super Tour (HST) is now part of that story after contests were held Saturday on The Circuit, a brand-new track at BRP that was christened just last month.
The Feb. 22-23, 2025, meetup hosted by SCCA’s California Sports Car Club (Cal Club) saw sunny and pleasant conditions Saturday morning as drivers rolled out on course for 20-minute practice sessions. That was followed by 15-minute qualifying rounds for each of the seven run groups, then 25-minute races to crown inaugural HST victors at The Circuit within their respective car classes.
The Circuit at Buttonwillow
Honors for being the overall winner of HST’s first-ever race on The Circuit at BRP went to E Production driver Glen McCready in the No. 4 TC Design Mazda MX-5. Now, McCready’s name is etched into the history of a venue that saw its first event 30 years ago.
Just west of BRP’s entry road is where you’ll find The Circuit – a 2.56-mile, 10-turn layout that runs alongside Lerdo Highway. The track boasts a front straight that is 1,840 feet long and 50 feet wide, then everything else is 40 feet in width to give racers room to play. The track surface is “green” in that recycled contents have been utilized throughout development. That includes rubberized asphalt offering great grip and tire longevity for drivers, and Grade 4 FIA track-specific standards have been met.
The new playground features towering silver canopies topped by power-producing solar panels that provide electricity and shade within paved paddock space, and the canopies are tall enough for race haulers to slide beneath. Those seeking juice for electric vehicles will also find a 16-unit Tesla Supercharger station on site.
A spacious two-story building with bathrooms is in place for race operations and more, but that structure needs to be inspected by county officials before it can be utilized by personnel. So for this HST weekend, temporary facilities are in place.
Plans were devised more than a decade ago to construct another circuit at the northwest portion of BRP’s undeveloped property. Progress was severely hampered, however, upon realization that a Giant Kangaroo Rat was perhaps on site. An endangered and protected species, California and Federal entities required BRP’s new layout to conserve space for the critter’s ancestral ground.
BRP’s natural topography is flat, but sharp eyes will note a slight feature of interest right at The Circuit’s center, which is where the Giant Kangaroo Rat preserve is positioned. That’s not the only track portion that gets a rise as three hills of varied elevation also exist to supply additional thrills for drivers.
The 500-acre BRP facility is located next to Interstate 5 about midway between San Diego and San Francisco. It previously boasted three separate tracks: the 1.86-mile West Loop, a 1.06-mile East Loop, and a combined track reaching 3.1 miles in length. There is also a .69-mile kart track.
Thanks to clever planning, BRP’s original layout still yields more than 40 different race and test configurations designed to emulate street and road racing courses throughout North America. That feature certainly helped the Hoosier Super Tour in 2023 when torrential rains resulted in a quick layout reconfiguration that kept competition going.
One Wascally VW Wabbit Workhorse
A small Energizer Bunny plush doll – gritty, worn and perhaps pink at one time – is a permanent accoutrement affixed inside the No. 95 Volkswagen GTI that took part in HST festivities Saturday at The Circuit. The vehicle belongs to Tim Linerud, a 64-year-old F Production (FP) competitor from SCCA’s San Francisco Region who affectionately refers to the vehicle as the “Wascally Wabbit” in honor of cartoon character Bugs Bunny.
That’s a pretty good nickname for that particular racecar. However, the silver vehicle could also be called a Swiss Army Knife as it has done a little bit of everything, just like its owner.
The vessel Linerud races started out as a brand-new street car purchased for $7,500 in 1981 from a Santa Cruz, CA, dealership. It logged more than 300,000 miles as a daily driver before promotion in 2000 to an Improved Touring B competition vehicle. The car has since transformed as SCCA rulesets changed. It was raced in G Production, did a little autocross duty, then competed in GT-Lite before its conversion now to F Production.
“For most of the last 10 years, I’ve been one of the only water-cooled Volkswagens in the paddock. So I’m kind of unique, or maybe just stubborn,” Linerud joked. “I will most likely only get rid of this car when I roll it up into a ball and have to junk it.”
The Saturday FP race on The Circuit was won by Brian Linn in the No. 3 Goodyear/Carbotech/Race For RP/Rebello/LINNspeed/SH Consultants Nissan Sentra SE-R. Linerud finished third, a solid performance considering he damaged a left-front hub early in the morning and wrenched hard to get the car back on course.
“I’m not all that competitive,” Linerud admitted. “This is my hobby; this is my money pit. I enjoy the camaraderie of the racers, as well as the workers. And I still enjoy the thrill. Yes, you’re competing against other cars, but you’re also still competing against yourself.”
Linerud first joined SCCA in 1978 as a volunteer. He gleefully covered various assignments – such as Grid, Flagging, Communications and more – for nearly three decades. And while he has been part of previous HST Buttonwillow events, this weekend is different as it’s the first since the passing of his wife, Nora Daly, who helped for many years as Communications Chief for SCCA’s San Francisco Region.
“Volunteering was our hobby; that was what Nora and I did. That was our social group that we had, all based around tracks. That was all the people we knew for 20 or 30 years,” Linerud said. “For me to stop, I think Nora would say, ‘Tim, don’t stop doing that just because I’m not there.’”
Easygoing Izzy Gets Unlucky
Izzy Sanchez is usually one upbeat, chipper chap at the track. That is especially true when he’s winning, which is something the 69-year-old Touring 4 (T4) driver has done in eight of the previous 10 HST Buttonwillow races.
His passion for racing developed through karting, but not the same sort of karting in which many youngsters start today. After escaping Cuba in 1969 with practically nothing, the Sanchez family ended up in Spain. It was on an amusement park go-kart track near Madrid that 14-year-old Izzy fell in love with speed and motorsport.
In 1971, the Sanchez family immigrated to the United States. Then in the mid-‘70s, Izzy completed his competition drivers school and began wheel-to-wheel racing with SCCA. His younger brother, Luis, did the same. The two, who are both members of SCCA’s Cal Club, have been racing together ever since, including involvement in the Playboy United States Endurance Cup and Escort Endurance Championship. Luis also earned a 1982 Runoffs® victory in Showroom Stock A, and Izzy grabbed his one National Championship a year later driving in Showroom Stock GT.
“I’ve never found anything that gives me as much pleasure and keeps me so engaged,” Izzy said about motorsport. “Racing is like you’re playing chess at a high speed. I’ve never found anything so exciting.”
Unfortunately, Izzy’s luck ran out Saturday at The Circuit. A mechanical issue that developed early in the morning could not be repaired and has sidelined his No. 78 Hoosier/Carbotech/Hughes Orthopedics Toyota FR-S for the weekend. Instead, the opening day’s T4 victory went to Oscar Jackson in the No. 161 Specialty Vehicle Logistics/DME/Hoosier Mazda MX-5.
Is Izzy disappointed? Absolutely. But he still looks to the future and is thankful to be involved in SCCA racing for nearly five decades now.
“I’m very grateful to be able to live in this country and very grateful that I’m still racing,” he said. “I’m also grateful for SCCA doing races for so many years.”
Saturday Race Winners
Below are provisional race winners from Saturday’s Hoosier Racing Tire SCCA Super Tour conducted on The Circuit at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. Each entry includes Car Class: Driver Name, SCCA Region, and Car.
American Sedan®: Roger Eagleton, San Francisco Region, Ford Mustang
B-Spec: Thomas Lepper, San Francisco Region, Mini Cooper
E Production: Glen McCready, Cal Club Region, Mazda MX-5
F Production: Brian Linn, Cal Club Region, Nissan Sentra SE-R
H Production: Bill Okell, Oregon Region, MG Midget
Formula Atlantic®: Greg Labadie, Cal Club Region, Swift 016
Formula Continental®: Paul MacFarlane, Cal Club Region, Van Diemen RF01
Formula Enterprises® 2: Tom Hope, Cal Club Region, SCCA Enterprises FE2 Mazda
Formula F: Eric Poulsen, Cal Club Region, Piper DL7-Honda
Formula Vee®: Gavin Sweeney, San Francisco Region, Protoform P4
GT-1: Michael Lewis, San Diego Region, Jaguar XKR
GT-2: Brad McAllister, Oregon Region, Ford Mustang
GT3U: Michael Lewis, San Diego Region, Mazda RX-7
GT-X: Rob Scholl, Northwest Region, Ford Mustang GT4
Spec Miata: William Wallis, San Francisco Region, Mazda Miata
Spec MX-5: Ethan Lampe, San Francisco Region, Mazda MX-5
Spec Racer® Ford Gen3: Caleb Shrader, Oregon Region, SCCA Enterprises SRF3
Prototype: Jim Devenport, San Francisco Region, Elan DP02
Super Touring® Lite: Nick Leverone, New England Region, Mazda Miata
Super Touring® Under: Rylan Hazelton, San Francisco Region, Honda S2000
Touring 1: Ian Barberi, San Francisco Region, BMW M3
Touring 2: Oli Thordarson, Arizona Region, Chevrolet Corvette
Touring 3: Roger Eagleton, San Francisco Region, Ford Mustang
Touring 4: Oscar Jackson, Cal Club Region, Mazda MX-5
Sunday on The Circuit at BRP
The fun is nowhere near done at The Circuit as one more day of HST excitement goes down Sunday at BRP. On-track action commences at 8 a.m. Pacific Time with 15-minute qualifying rounds for each of the seven run groups. That’s followed by 19-lap or 35-minute contests for those same groups to unveil a second set of winners.
Enjoy the wheel-to-wheel excitement online thanks to HST’s broadcast produced by DriversEye Live. Anchored by announcers Brian Bielanski and Gregg Ginsberg, the video coverage is streamed via the SCCA YouTube channel, and Sunday victory podium celebrations can be viewed at the SCCA Road Racing Facebook page.
Don’t forget that live HST Timing & Scoring is found throughout the weekend at scca.com/live.
Photo: E Production driver Glen McCready, center, claimed the very first Hoosier Super Tour overall race win Saturday on The Circuit at Buttonwillow.
Photo by SCCA Staff
