The Corvette roadster that Bo Butner has driven to two wins and a final round in Super Gas this year at the national event level made a guest appearance in Super Comp this weekend at the NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex.
The car will head west after this weekend to return to Super Gas with back-to-back national and divisional events in Las Vegas, followed by the season-closer in Pomona. Butner is aiming for a strong finish in the top 10 in the Super Gas category, but since he is not within striking distance of the championship and already has a nicely filled out national scorecard, he opted to keep the seat warm with a go at Super Comp.
Butner has previously raced Super Comp, but never before in the roadster. Super Comp is typically a category populated by dragsters, with all cars aiming at the 8.90 index.
Friend and fellow competitor Austin Williams, a native of nearby Waxahachie, Texas, encouraged Butner to enter the roadster in Super Comp for the FallNationals.
“He kept telling me, you should just do it,” said Butner. “It’ll run like 180 mph, and we’re almost as fast as most of them, so I thought, well, I’ve done pretty well in the ‘vette, why not? We were kind of lost on knowing what to put in there. You would think you would take a second out to go from 9.90 to 8.90 [index], but it was a total guess.”
Once they made the first pass of the weekend, though, Butner and Dylan Mudd – who maintains the sportsman cars in the Bo Butner Racing camp – knew they’d guessed right and had something to work with. Butner left with a .005-second reaction time and raced to an 8.858 at 180.93 there in the first time trial. In the second session, a .007 light and 8.902 at 180.03 reinforced that it wasn’t a fluke and the roadster was rising to the occasion. In the final practice run, Butner recorded a .002 launch and a perfect 8.900.
The first three passes down the racetrack at Texas Motorplex took place on Thursday, and raceday rolled around bright and early on Friday. After watching fiancée Randi Lyn Shipp get the win light in the first round of Stock Eliminator, he rushed back to the lanes to hop in the trusty Corvette.
This time around, though, he came up empty-handed as the roadster left the line -.010-second too soon. Butner’s red-light foul was bested by Kyle Secrest’s .002 and 8.914, 182.02. Butner’s 8.913 was inconsequential.
“It was good, and I’m glad we tried it,” said Butner. “I would like to get a win in Super Comp one day – I don’t have one of those yet – but it looks like this wasn’t our weekend to do it. Now we’ll shift our focus to the JHG Pro Stocker. We’re due for a win with that one, and it would be really cool to maybe still get a double with Randi Lyn or our JHG crew guy Taylor Chomiski. He’s racing in Comp this weekend, too. We still have a lot of potential win lights out there.”
Sportsman racing continues throughout Friday at the Texas NHRA FallNationals at Texas Motorplex, and Pro Stock will take to the track for two qualifying passes on Friday, beginning at 2:30 p.m. Central Time.
This story was originally published on October 14, 2022. 
