USTCC Round 1 - Overall Pole in the WET

 Race Recap April 2026 - The Circuit at Buttonwillow 

April 24th Found Andy Chittum's Mad Man Motorsports team returning to USTCC competition at this time at The Circuit at Buttonwillow, a new track to many of the USTCC competitors.  Earlier in the week, the weather had been rough, but forecast was for a clear if chilly qualifying Saturday afternoon.  

As the teams prepared for qualifying after several practice sessions during the day, however, the afternoon grew darker and cloud cover intensified, and a few precipitation trails could be seen in the distance across the flat plain of California's central valley. 

Sure enough, as the USTCC competitors lined up on slick tires along with SpeedSF's endurance group for qualifying the first drops of water began to fall, and the track had a light sprinkle throughout qualifying to add excitement to all 26 driver's challenge of setting a fast lap.

Chittum immediately pushed hard to get heat into the sticky Hankook tires, and times began to fall in between laps where he negotiated lapped traffic.  While the track surface didn't puddle up too much, Chittum also found that his wipers had malfunctioned right at the start of qualifying, stuck at halfway position.  This left Chittum crouching down under the wipers to see the apex of right-handed turns, and straining to look over the wipers for left handed turns, but after a few laps he had the track dialed in. 

Initially, only 2:05ish laps were possible, but in the last lap of qualifying Chittum was able to fully send a few critical turns to eek out a 2:03.4 which was good for pole position not just faster than the USTCC SP class, but faster than all the USTCC cars, some with hundreds more horsepower, and it was good for pole position for SpeedSF's B Enduro class as well, and 4th overall in the entire group.  

Sunday morning 8am race time, started out as opposite day with the skies clear, but the track rather damp with standing water.  Chittum lined up at the front with high powered cars, and at the drop of the flag, fell back a few positions without the momentum of a full lap behind the MX5.

At the start, Reza Arsham driving the #30 Gogogear K24 Civic came motoring by, and in traffic got about a 5 second lead on the Mazda.  For the next 40 minutes, Chittum and Arsham would battle back and forth, gaining and losing ground, between 4 to 8 seconds the whole race, with Chittum finally finishing 2nd to the Civic on the fast Buttonwillow Circuit Course just about 5 seconds behind.  

Mad Man Motorsports will return to USTCC competition May 23-24 back at Sonoma Raceway where Chittum holds the lap record in the #99 Mazda MX5 in USTCC SP Class -- it promises to be one for the books!