Hot off the heels of a successful streak of Legend Car races, Australian racer, Bronson Butcher, made his debut in the hugely competitive Super Late Model ranks at Southern National Motorsport Parks marquee event, The Thanksgiving Classic.
The newly assembled GMS Racing Driver Development team had a successful test earlier in the week and were confident heading into the weekends event, ending final practice 3rd on the time sheets. Butcher qualified his #16 Butch Lindley inspired Chevrolet in 3rd, missing the top spot by only half a tenth of a second; Butchers first attempt at single lap qualifying.
The start of the race didn’t go smoothly, the Aussie racer suffering a flat right front tire on lap 35 of the race when a lapped down car come down the racetrack and made contact with the #16 machine, with plenty of laps left though, the GMS Racing team got the car repaired and Butcher went to work. Methodically working his way through the field, Butcher passed for the 2nd position with 10 laps to go and didn’t look back, finishing the 125 lap event in 2nd.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling, to finish 2nd in my first Super Late Model race and in the first outing for GMS Racing’s development team. We put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes the last 3 months to get this program off the ground and I couldn’t be prouder of how we performed as a team, even bouncing back after getting that damage early on.”
Butcher and the GMS Racing team don’t plan to rest for too long, as they start preparations for the 2018 season, kicking off with Watermelon Capital Speedways Speedfest on January 28th.
