From BMW Obsession to Racing Career: John Butler’s Motorsports Journey

You mentioned you did some, you rented some seats for endurance racing.

Yeah.

All right, so let's talk about those because I do have listeners that that's how they get on track or that's how they're thinking about getting on track.

What was your experience like? What are some things that you didn't ask you should have? What were some surprises you had during the weekend that might help the listener better select how to choose a rental seat and how even to go about finding a rental seat? Yeah, I

mean, how to choose a rental seat, that's, it's, you know, I think the number one thing I would say is don't necessarily be seduced by the car, be seduced by the team.

Um, especially when you get into wheel-to-wheel, I think that most people would agree with this, is you get out there and if you're doing wheel-to-wheel, you realize that you don't care if the car has 150 horsepower or 400.

Because that's not really what you're focusing on.

The first time that I ever did a wheel-to-wheel race, I realized that I was not paying any mind to my laptops.

I was simply focusing on the car in front of me.

And so I think that it can be, you know, if you're first jumping into it, especially if you've got experience in time attack and you're kind of used to sexy cars or the big arrow big power and whatnot um oftentimes those cars might be great for a lap or two but they really struggle when you're doing endurance racing it completely it flips the table upside down and where reliability is what will win the race

um

and so you really want to look for the team that's going to be committed to it the team is going to keep the car running to where like i was mentioning earlier car breaks, you know what I mean? Let alone if an axle goes, but if an engine goes, are they going to replace it on Friday night or Saturday night and get you back out on Sunday? A lot of teams will, some teams won't, right? It might even be a cost prohibitive thing.

If you're running an E46 M3 that has a $10,000 engine, you know, it can be a little bit different.

But I think jumping just into wheel to wheel in general, i think it was an eye-opening thing for me in the sense that it's it's very different from time to time it's it's you're you're really focused on the battle in front of you not necessarily the longest lap and then when you take that and you add in a two-hour stint i really underestimate the fatigue that you can run

into

um it it I learned very quickly that you cannot get into the car and treat like a time attack session and say, let's go 10 tenths because you will run out of steam yourself in 20 minutes.

You have to pace yourself the same way that you're going to pace your fuel consumption, the same way that you're going to pace your tires so that you can last that full stint.

That is great advice, especially the last part of there about not running out of steam.

You have to be prepared for the whole stint.

So since we're talking about endurance racing, let's let's throw it back to mid Ohio champ car.

You were not there.

Would have been great if you were there.

Maybe we'll get you in a, in a radar car next year, but some of your buddies from Hawk, some of your friends that have, have continued on after Hawk spent the weekend with radar racing.

It sounds like you've had some conversations, some feedback.

Don't hold back, John.