For anyone who paid attention between 2020 and 2025, the wait for “the new track” at Buttonwillow was often painful, and sometimes felt cursed. I’d almost given up. I was almost surprised when it actually opened with the first bikes hitting the track in February with Track Daz. I was pretty sad I couldn’t join them, actually. I was signed up, but due to some air fence drama, the first weekend got pushed back two weeks and then I had a conflict. So, I didn’t get to actually see the track until I was able to stop by for one day in July, which proved fun and fruitful:

Come the first weekend in September, CRA brought the world the very first motorcycle races at what became officially titled The Circuit at Buttonwillow. I had been looking forward to the idea of this race for years: it was a chance to test myself against the best racers in California (boy did everyone show up) on a totally level playing field – nobody knew the track better than anyone else, so just time to rip and see what we got.

Things would not go smoothly for me. Friday I was pushing in the mid afternoon for a qualifying simulation lap, and found a seam in the middle of turn 4:

I spent Friday evening putting the bike back together, though, so I met my dream Saturday morning of gridding up for literally the first motorcycle race ever at The Circuit. Twins bikes were Race 1. This was it. Whoever won this race would be the first race winner ever. The fastest lap would be however temporarily the lap record. I loved it. I was in. Thanks to an ok qualifying and a bit of luck, I even got to land a bit of trivia, as I launched from pole position in the first race start ever at The Circuit. The race got a bit weird after that, though. This was our first attempt:

This was just the first of what became three red flags in the attempt to run this first race. After the third, the race director shook his head and declared the race over. This was a bummer for me because in that last run I was in second when the red flag came out, but eating chunks out of the the leader and feeling confident I was ultimately going to beat him to the checkered flag. Still, a podium for the official first race ever is a memory not to be dismissed.

Later that day, the weirdness came back, though. my bike was black flagged in my next race for plumes of black smoke coming out the exhaust. Turned out I’d sprung a radiator leak and after all the coolant was gone and my engine over-heated, there was nothing left to do but burn oil. Luckily, I had a spare radiator in my van, so I installed it and convinced a skeptical race director to let me run again Sunday.

Sunday, I got in a last lap battle and I felt like it was time to take out all the struggles of the weekend into winning that battle. I’d already identified turn 5 as a “balls corner” – that is, you just have to have the balls to throw it in there faster than you think you can, so in order to win my battle I threw it in there faster than I thought I could and tried for an outside pass. Being off the normal line didn’t sit well with the bike, and nobody was happy with the result:

That wrapped it for an honestly way-too-eventful first race weekend at The Circuit. The story really wasn’t over for me, though, because this beginning also served as prelude to the AFM season finale, and I had championships on the line.

Back soon with that story.