Buttonwillow Raceway 13CW
Buttonwillow Raceway Park is a multipurpose Motorsport facility, home to the California Region of the Sports Car Club of America. It's been in operation since 1996 at the town of Buttonwillow, a 30-min drive away from Bakersfield, CA. The club members use the complex to develop their high-performance racing skills on track days open for aspiring racecar drivers. Buttonwillow Raceway Park also hosts regular go-kart competitions and serves as a road testing ground for car manufacturers. The raceway's location in the arid San Joaquin Valley offers good climate conditions year-round, although it may get quite hot in summer. You can bet on the track surface to remain dry, as it rains very little in Buttonwillow, usually in wintertime.
There are three track layouts in Buttonwillow Raceway Park: the 1.86-mile West Loop, the 1.06-mile East loop, and the 3.1-mile combined configuration. These are customizable in 40+ different ways for hosting varied competitions simultaneously. There is also a separate kart track of 0.69 miles and a 250′ x 255′ skidpad. The main straightaway has 3,800 feet and serves as a test drag strip when it's not a part of a race layout. Some turns have negative banking, and others have up to 10% positive banking, and many of them are blind corners because of the frequent elevation changes through the whole race track.
Buttonwillow Raceway's 13CW configuration establishes itself as California's premier technical circuit, combining the facility's East and West loops into a 4.310-kilometer clockwise layout featuring 21 turns that test every aspect of vehicle dynamics. Located in Kern County's agricultural heartland, 45 kilometers northwest of Bakersfield, this configuration earned its reputation through time attack series like Super Lap Battle that demand absolute precision across varied corner types. The track's 40-foot width accommodates multiple racing lines through corners ranging from tight hairpins to sweeping banked turns, while frequent elevation changes create blind entries and off-camber sections punishing mid-corner mistakes.
The 13CW layout's defining characteristic lies in its diversity—on-camber and off-camber corners, positive banking up to 10 percent and negative banking sections, hairpins, chicanes, and the infamous Bus Stop chicane connecting the East-West sections. Lost Hill (also called Phil Hill) crowns a 4.5-meter elevation rise where drivers commit blind over the crest before dropping into technical combinations below. The configuration's average speed of 82 mph reflects constant direction changes rather than sustained straights, rewarding chassis balance and driver feel over raw power. California's Central Valley climate creates extreme track temperature variations—summer sessions can see asphalt exceeding 60°C while winter track days operate in near-freezing conditions. This technical character attracts serious track day enthusiasts, club racers, and professional time attack competitors seeking the ultimate setup challenge across Buttonwillow's unforgiving 21-turn puzzle.
Class Podiums
Buttonwillow Raceway 13CW is 4.4 km, 21 turns, clockwise. Fastest recorded lap: 1:37.308 (Honda Civic Si Coupe FG2 2011 (PZ Tuning / Vibrant Performance #113)).