NASCAR Truck Series rookie Cole Butcher spent his first off-weekend back in something more familiar, driving a Super Late Model at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, and nearly won the race in a spirited duel with Richard Childress Racing development driver Carson Brown too.
It was a much needed reminder to himself that he still knows what he’s doing after three races in which literally everything was novel.
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“It’s been very overwhelming, especially with the dirty air, because with a Super Late Model, when you get loose, you can feel it and catch, but sometimes it’s too late when that happens in a Truck so it’s just different,” Butcher said over the weekend in Pensacola. “It’s all about learning.
“I’ve been leaning on my teammates and have a notebook full of notes.”
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It helps that one of his teammates, Jake Garcia, also spent that weekend racing in Pensacola and another teammate, Ty Majeski, is one of the all-time short track greats. ThorSport Racing has a lot of familiar voices for Butcher to rely on during this transition phase.
“I talk to Ty and Ben (Rhodes) quite often and it’s a group of great teammates and a great team behind me in Duke and Rhonda (Thorson) because they put a lot of effort and a lot of money into this thing and it’s our job to perform. I think, so far, all of our ThorSport trucks have had speed so that’s been helpful.”
What makes it especially tough is that Butcher has gone from a racing world that has numerous days of practice and testing to one where he gets under a half hour. So how does he try to catch up to the rest of the field?
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“I’ve been using a lot of my resources, whether its iRacing or my sim time, and I have six hours of sim time right now at Darlington,” Butcher said. “Darlington seems like it’s tough because it’s like Montgomery or Myrtle Beach with the texture.
“I’ve watched as much video as possible, relying on my teammates, but it’s going to come down to feeling it in my butt when I get there. (Turn) 1 and 2 kind of feels like Winchester and 3 and 4 is like nothing I’ve ever done before so I just have to make the best use of our time when we get there.”
It also helps that crew chief Rich Lushes is a short track guy too. And everyone has told him to just manage those first three races to the best of his ability and the race craft will start to become more familiar with Darlington.
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Butcher is currently 15th in the standings with finishes of 14th, 31st and 14th.
“I’ve been saying, ‘let’s get through these first three races so we can do some real racing’ at Darlington, Bristol and Rockingham. When you put on the helmet, when you’re a professional, this should come natural but I also know it’s going to be a big learning year.
“And then next year, the plan is to do some serious damage, but for now, just taking it week-by-week and track-by-track and just trying to collect some top-5s and top-10s, try to make the playoffs.”
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