The Bo Butner Racing team is taking a different approach in the 2024 season of NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, and it all begins this weekend at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at Charlotte\u2019s zMAX Dragway. While 2017 Pro Stock world champion Bo raced in NHRA\u2019s 500 cubic-inch professional category for the bulk of the past decade, he and his wife and fellow racer Randi Lyn \u201cRL\u201d Butner have solidified a leap to the powerful Johnson\u2019s Horsepowered Garage Mountain Motor Pro Stock series driving twin JHG Chevrolet Camaros.
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Bo, who was the No. 1 qualifier in the Mountain Motor category at the PRO Super Star Shootout pre-season exhibition event, heads into this new era with enthusiasm along with temperance. He expects a learning curve and is willing to embrace it as the duo find their way in the 800-plus-cubic-inch series with power supplied by Elite Motorsports and applied by well-regarded tuner Frank Gugliotta.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a pretty good start in Mountain Motor Pro Stock, and we\u2019re just having fun driving these cars,\u201d said Bo, who clocked a best time of 4.060-second at 178.05 mph to the 1\/8th mile finish line. Mountain Motor Pro Stock races to the quarter-mile in NHRA competition, but Bo sees no issue with taking it down the full stretch.
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\u201cThere is such a big learning curve in this, it\u2019s all new to us, but we\u2019re off to a great start,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe have a monster team between the Elite Motorsports guys and our crew chief, Frank. There isn\u2019t much more you could ask for in the Mountain Motor world.\u201d
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While Bo is looking forward to his own newest endeavor, he\u2019s just as excited \u2013 if not more \u2013 to see his wife step up to a class that is overwhelmingly different than anything she\u2019s ever raced in before. In addition to competing at the pre-season exhibition event alongside Bo, RL actually won her first round of competition.
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\u201cShe\u2019s done awesome,\u201d he said. \u201cI was not worried about her at all, and she\u2019s doing her job. It\u2019s fun for me to stand behind her car and see her do well. She\u2019s never let go of a clutch pedal before this, but she\u2019s been a very good student. I\u2019m proud of her.\u201d
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The transition to Mountain Motor is massive, particularly for RL, who is a devoted Lucas Oil Series competitor and the 2021 Division 3 champion in Stock Eliminator. She began the licensing process earlier this year and spent concentrated time with Gugliotta getting to know the car and making runs down the racetrack. After racking up laps in front of a crowd in the eighth-mile race earlier this year, she locked down her quarter-mile license mid-April and it was official. RL\u2019s 6.323-second pass at 208.04 mph at Virginia Motorsports Park broke all her own personal records and set her up to officially make her NHRA JHG Mountain Motor Pro Stock debut in Charlotte.
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Over the course of her test runs and through the licensing process, the up-and-coming Mountain Motor Pro Stock driver was challenged with everything from weather delays and tire shake to simply getting familiar with shifting and dropping the clutch.
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\u201cI feel like they broke me in the hard way,\u201d laughed RL, referring to learning to recognize and respond to tire shake in a finicky Mountain Motor Pro Stock car. \u201cIt was a little shaky, literally, but we have the smartest guys out there, and I knew they would figure it out. I don\u2019t know if I would have called it fun in the beginning, because it was very nerve-racking, and I was definitely out of my element. But sometimes change is good, and it was empowering to make the good runs and be able to that. I never thought I would have this opportunity \u2013 I\u2019d seen Bo do it a million times, but it\u2019s so different to be the one inside the car controlling it.\u201d
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The JHG Mountain Motor Pro Stock series is scheduled to start at the spring race in Charlotte, April 26-28, and continue with races in Bristol, Richmond, Brainerd, and Reading, with the season-closer taking place at the fall event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
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Participants in the series will race at each of the six scheduled events for a Wally, NHRA\u2019s coveted national event trophy. For the first time, the class will compete for a world title, with a champion crowned at the end of the season in Las Vegas.
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\u201cI\u2019ve learned a lot already,\u201d said RL, who will continue to race her 1967 Pontiac Firebird in Stock Eliminator throughout the season, though not in Charlotte. \u201cI have way more confidence in myself now, and I almost feel guilty that the guys go to so much trouble and so much hard work for me to have four seconds of fun.
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\u201cI\u2019m very excited about the season. A couple months ago, I didn\u2019t even know if I could drive a clutch car. But Bo can drive anything \u2013 if it had four pedals, he\u2019d probably be amazing it \u2013 and I think that him helping me through all the steps has really made a difference. It\u2019s always good for a relationship if you\u2019re working toward a common goal, and I think our whole team will be better off because of it.\u201d
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This story was originally published on April 25, 2024. <\/p>\n
The post Bo and Randi Lyn Butner set for JHG Mountain Motor Pro Stock debut in Charlotte<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bo Butner Racing team is taking a different approach in the 2024 season of NHRA\u2019s Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, and it all begins this weekend at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at Charlotte\u2019s zMAX Dragway. While 2017 Pro Stock world champion Bo raced in NHRA\u2019s 500 cubic-inch professional category for the bulk of the […]<\/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-92522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92522","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=92522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}