The BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour heads West to Buttonwillow Raceway Park for the fourth Round of the 2012 season, attracting more than 140 entries for the Double National weekend hosted by Cal Club.

Saturday features practice, qualifying and a 15-lap race for the six race groups, and Sunday’s BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour will include the ceremonial victory laps and podium celebrations.

Follow Live: Live timing and scoring and Twitter updates are available at http://www.scca.com/sccalive. Timing is also available through the Race Monitor app for iOS and Droid devices.

California Dreamin’: With 142 drivers on the entry list, the Buttonwillow race weekend has six full race groupings. The largest group is the final group of the day, including six cars in the Touring 1 and E Production classes and five in H Production.

Spec Miata features 21 cars on the entry list, warranting its own group during the weekend. Among the competition in the class is current SCCA Pro Racing Playboy Mazda MX-5 Cup Championship leader Elliot Skeer, a 17-year-old driver from Vista, Calif.

Eighteen cars are expected to take the green flag in Spec Racer Ford, who also has its own run group during the event. Bakersfield resident and track manager Mike Miserendino, a four-time National Champion in the class, is just one of the racers at Buttonwillow.

Best-wick in Class?: Maybe the most decorated racer at Buttonwillow for the BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour is eight-time X Games gold medalist Jamie Bestwick. Bestwick, a BMX legend in the sport, has dozens of other wins around the world in BMX Vert, including the most wins of any competitor on the Dew Tour since its inception in 2005.

Bestwick has turned his attention to the SCCA SafeRacer National Series, running the No. 00 RACER.com/Hoosier/OS Giken/Monster/DK Bicycles Toyota Yaris in H Production. This weekend is the first appearance at a BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour race for the State College, Pa. resident.

From The Everyday To The Incredible: The racers at this weekend’s BFGoodrich Tires Midwest Super Tour are a unique mix of talented drivers. Most are “weekend warriors,”mixing it up on the track on the weekends before heading home to their day-to-day jobs through the week. Some are youngsters with an eye on a professional driving career, honing their craft while looking to the future. The common theme to an SCCA competition is that these are seemingly ordinary people doing extraordinary things with racecars.

How prolific can these drivers become? Start with the motorsports legends — Bobby Rahal, Mark Donohue, Roger Penske, Michael Andretti, and actor/driver Paul Newman got their start in SCCA Club Racing. More recently, you could have seen current stars Boris Said, Graham Rahal, Sam Hornish or Scott Sharp at a Club race.

The Best In Amateur Racing: SCCA Club Racing is the top level of amateur motorsports. Of the 300 Club Racing events held coast-to-coast, 70 of them are designated as “National”events, meaning they are qualifying events for the National Championship Runoffs® and comprise the SafeRacer SCCA National Racing Series. Of these 70 events, only nine are designated as BFGoodrich Tires SCCA Super Tour races, bringing the National spotlight to town and making this weekend among a select group of can’t-miss events across the country.

At Buttonwillow, the racing weekend consists of National races on Saturday, followed by Sunday’s BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour races. Points for the BFGoodrich Super Tour will only be earned for Sunday’s races, however.

Coming Back For More: The BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour program got its start in 2011 at Texas World Speedway, and Buttonwillow was one of the events on the six-race schedule. This year, all nine Super Tour races are the qualifying events for the prestigious Super Sweep Trophy.

Drivers can earn a Super Sweep trophy by winning a Super Tour Race, the nation-wide point standings, a Divisional Championship, and a National Championship at the Runoffs, all in the same class.

About our Sponsor: When BFGoodrich Tires signed on as the Official Street Tire of SCCA in 2011, they wanted to add something special to the program that provided a new experience for racers. Taking cues from the Tire Rack SCCA National Solo program and the Runoffs, the Super Tour was born, offering a Championship level experience without requiring a long tow.

BFGoodrich recently announced a special program for all SCCA members. Any member purchasing a set of BFGoodrich street or competition tires is eligible for a $50 rebate. This includes the new 2012 g-Force Sport COMP-2™ BFGoodrich’s Ultra High Performance summer tire, developed for the drivers of sports cars, performance sedans and modern muscle cars looking for the next level of control and fun.

BFGoodrich Tires Sopac Super Tour Dbl National

Southern California’s best racers enjoyed perfect weather and waged some intense battles during the first half of the Cal Club Region’s Double National weekend, the opening act for Sunday’s BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour at Buttonwillow Raceway Park.

Mike Miserendino took Spec Racer Ford, winning by 16 seconds over TJ Acker, who held on to second place over Paul Marino despite suffering a flat tire on the final lap.

Michael Lewis won Group Two overall and in GT-1 even though he made a quick dip to the pits in his Jaguar XKR just past the halfway point. Mike Henderson and Wolfgang Maike had a great battle for the lead in GT-3 until Maike spun his Toyota in Grapevine, letting Henderson and his Mazda RX-7 cruise to the win. Marc Hoover sped to the Super Touring® Under win and lowered his track record in the process driving his turbocharged Mazda Miata.

Race Group Three was marred by two incidents, one at the start and one at the finish that eliminated three Sports 2000 entries. Lee Alexander took the overall and D Sports Racing win by nearly a minute and a half. David Ferguson topped the 13-car Sports 2000 field that saw Paul Fruchbom and Adam Draizin eliminated before even reaching the start line. The race finished under full course caution after Bob Lovenson’s car found the wall in the final corner two laps from the end. None of the drivers were injured, but all will likely miss Sunday’s race.

The race of the day involved a pair of teenagers, battling for supremacy in Group Four for Spec Miata. Polesitter Tyler Vance led early, but sixth-starting Elliott Skeer put the pressure on and eventually took the lead. Taking the one to go signal with a one-second lead did not prove enough for Skeer, as Vance took the point on the back straight. Undeterred, Skeer re-passed Vance for the lead two corners from the finish to take the win.

Group Five was won overall by the Formula F of Ed Erlandson, but the best battle was for Formula Vee, with Dennis Andrade and Ron Wake trading the lead throughout. On the final lap, Wake disappeared at the Off Ramp complex, letting Andrade cruise to the win.

The final group of the day saw a runaway victory overall for Chuck Matthews in his Touring 1 Corvette. Aaron Downey (Mazda RX-3) and Brian Linn (Mazda Miata) looked to have EP and FP in hand until mechanical issues took them out, allowing Gary Gist (Mazda RX-7) and Noel Hayward (MG Midget) to take the respective wins. Jason Isley and eight-time X-Games Gold Medalist Jamie Bestwick made it a Toyota Yaris one-two in H Production. Ali Naimi led the first two-thirds of the Showroom Stock C race, but it was Brian Husting who took the win in his Chevrolet Cobalt.

Sunday’s BFGoodrich Tires Sopac Super Tour gets under way Sunday morning with qualifying sessions at 8 a.m. (Pacific).

BFGoodrich Tires Sopac Super Tour Dbl National