Racers and fans who check the Top Sportsman entry list for the upcoming Gerber Collision & Glass NHRA Route 66 Nationals presented by Peak Performance at Route 66 Raceway will likely notice a glaring omission: Doylestown, Ohio\u2019s Glenn Butcher. Don\u2019t worry, though. Butcher is on the entry list for Chicago, just in a different class. After more than 20 years of Top Sportsman competition, Butcher will make his NHRA Pro Mod debut at Route 66 on May 17-19.<\/p>\n
Butcher will roll into his debut still riding the excitement from his recent win in Elite Top Sportsman at the PDRA Kaeser Compressors Mid-Atlantic Showdown presented by Classic Graphix at Virginia Motorsports Park. Driving his Albert-powered Butcher & Son Demolition \u201969 Camaro, Butcher qualified No. 2 and raced past hitters like Bruce Thrift, Brian Tiffe, and Dewayne Silance before getting the final-round win over Tim Paap. It was Butcher\u2019s first Elite Top Sportsman win since the 2019 PDRA Northern Nationals at Dragway 42.<\/p>\n
David Beitler photo<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was super, super-duper rewarding,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cThe combination is still new because we\u2019re still working on a few things and it\u2019s really coming around. The car\u2019s awesome. It was really, really, really rewarding to finally put everything together. The car\u2019s been really good. The driver has not been the best as of lately, so it was nice to see that the driver can still drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butcher and his family have become staples in the Top Sportsman community, especially in the PDRA. They were reminded of that Saturday night when fellow racers crowded the winner\u2019s circle to congratulate them. Adding to the emotion of the moment was the fact Butcher was able to win in honor of 2022 PDRA Elite Top Sportsman world champion Henry Underwood, a Virginia native who\u2019s battling stage 4 lung cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was watching the live feed back right after I got home, and the amount of people behind the car was just amazing,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cI was like, \u2018Wow.\u2019 You forget how many drag racing friends you have until you see stuff like that and you see people come to the winner\u2019s circle, and then you get to celebrate it in honor of Henry at his home track with his daughter. I got to see Henry and his brother at the track, and it meant a lot. It kept me really focused. There was a big part of driving as well, wanting to do it for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Rowe photo<\/p>\n
Butcher was quick to share in the credit for his success, making special mention of fellow Elite Top Sportsman driver Dan Ferguson and Butcher\u2019s family-based team, which includes wife Linda, son Maximus, daughter Lyla, and mother-in-law Titi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI really, really have to show some appreciation to Dan Ferguson,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cHe\u2019s been an incredible help. His attention to detail on the tune-up and always trying to make things better has truly made my car really, really good. I owe everything to his hard work. It\u2019s a joint effort, but he\u2019s really a main cog in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
That brings us to Butcher\u2019s upcoming NHRA Pro Mod debut. The move may come as a surprise to his fellow racers, but it\u2019s something Butcher has been envisioning for many years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been enamored by Pro Mod,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cIn my whole racing career, if I was at the track, I was watching every Pro Mod car go down the track, and I got to meet a lot of the drivers and become friends with them throughout my IHRA career and on into NHRA. Then ADRL probably really sparked my interest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butcher tried his hand at heads-up drag racing in the ADRL\u2019s Pro Nitrous division, which was loaded with nitrous Pro Mod hitters driving purpose-built, lightweight cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always a nitrous fan and I started campaigning a few local races,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cIt really wasn\u2019t worth traveling very far to race Pro Nitrous with my Top Sportsman car. You\u2019re showing up there with a plastic butter knife to a gunfight. But I enjoyed every aspect of it. I qualified No. 17 multiple times, so it was rewarding. I never did qualify, but it was rewarding to be there and be part of that community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke Nieuwhof photo<\/p>\n
Fifteen years or so later, Butcher is ready to try heads-up racing again. This time, he\u2019s better armed with a Garret Race Cars-built \u201969 Camaro powered by a nitrous-fed, Billy Albert-built 959-cubic-inch engine paired with an Abruzzi transmission and riding on Hoosier tires.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say it\u2019s a bucket list item \u2013 it is \u2013 but at the same time, I just want to see what I can do,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cIt\u2019s a crap-shoot. I think I have better than a plastic-butter-knife chance. Maybe just a single-shot, 21-gauge or something. I don\u2019t know. Definitely not bringing the bazooka, but I think we can make some quality runs, hopefully qualify, and maybe go a few rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not expecting a win,\u201d he continued. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re at all there. We\u2019ve never tried even going a quarter mile with everything on. We\u2019re going to do some testing in Martin, and I think we\u2019ve got a good shot. I\u2019m super excited about doing it. I\u2019m still nervous, but we can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though Butcher has a new Garret-built car coming together that will be more equipped to run NHRA Pro Mod, he didn\u2019t want to wait for that car\u2019s completion to make his debut. He went to work updating his current car to fit NHRA Pro Mod specs. He\u2019s also dabbled in some on-track testing while still focusing on Elite Top Sportsman competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually made a choice in the cockpit in E2 of the race in Virginia to drive it long,\u201d Butcher said. \u201cWhen I say long, I went beyond 660 [feet]. I tried to get close to a thousand feet just to see how our tune-up fared with vacuum and if I\u2019m starting to detonate the motor or anything like that. So we\u2019ve been doing little hit-and-miss stuff like that, gathering up parts, gathering up different gear ratios and different stuff like that, evaluating what we can and can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke Nieuwhof photo<\/p>\n
Butcher realizes his work will be cut out for him with 22 other drivers on the entry list with around three weeks left before the entry deadline. Rather than focus on the competition he\u2019ll face, Butcher is focusing on his own performance, having fun with his family, and making the most of the opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my goals are not to suck mainly,\u201d he laughed, \u201cbut I really just want to be respectable. Even if we don\u2019t qualify, if we can go out there and go 5.80 or 5.78s, I\u2019m happy with that. I really want to qualify. I would love to go some rounds. It\u2019s the initial effort to do it, so I don\u2019t expect a lot, but I think we have the capability of qualifying and doing well. Our car\u2019s really strong in the eighth, but there\u2019s a huge difference between the eighth and the quarter. But if I can go out there and qualify, win a round or so, I would call it a home run.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published on April 24, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Fresh Off PDRA Elite Top Sportsman Win, Glenn Butcher Eyes NHRA Pro Mod Debut at Chicago<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Racers and fans who check the Top Sportsman entry list for the upcoming Gerber Collision & Glass NHRA Route 66 Nationals presented by Peak Performance at Route 66 Raceway will likely notice a glaring omission: Doylestown, Ohio\u2019s Glenn Butcher. Don\u2019t worry, though. Butcher is on the entry list for Chicago, just in a different class. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}