Super Lap Battle
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The Super Lap Battle Finals are a time attack event held at Buttonwillow Raceway Park near Bakersfield, California. This event, sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association, is a competition fielded largely by privateer teams racing unibody-based production vehicles.
History
Beginning in November 2003, The Superstreet magazine sponsored Super Lap Battle is typically held just before SEMA which lands in November of each year. The event has traditionally been run on Buttonwillow's Clockwise 13-turn (CW13) configuration.
Borrowing heavily from the Hyper Rev Super Battle held at Tsukuba Circuit in Japan, It's prominence has been bolstered by numerous visiting world-class time attack teams. The most notable visiting team has arguably been the Japanese HKS team and their Mitsubishi Evolution "C230R" which made its way to Buttonwillow Raceway Park in 2007, lapping the course in 1min 43.523sec which was a substantial five seconds quicker than the previous record set by the Japanese Sun Auto "Cyber Evo" team in 2004. The HKS C230R record lap triggered an aggressive response by American competitors to regain the title. After nearly three years of progressive development and failed attempts at regaining the Super Lap Battle record from HKS the lap time was finally bested by a substantial margin at the 2010 event by Sierra Sierra Enterprises' Mitsubishi Evolution and Factor X Motorsports Development's Acura NSX, muscling their ways to lap times of 1:41.056 and 1:41.949 respectively.
Visiting Japanese Time Attack Racing Teams
- Sun Auto "Cyber Evo" Mitsubishi Evolution VII, Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada(2004)
- HKS C230R Mitsubishi Evolution VIII, Nobuteru Taniguchi (2007)
- Cusco/Tomei Powered Subaru Impreza STI, Eiji "Tarzan" Yamada(2009)
Notable American Time Attack Teams
- Sierra Sierra Enterprises Mitsubishi Evolution VIII, David "Emp" Empringham (Overall Record, Unlimited AWD Standing Record)
- Factor X Motorsports Development NSX, Billy Johnson (Unlimited FR Standing Record)
- World Racing Scion TC "Fwing", Chris Rado (Unlimited FF Standing Record)