The 2024 season has come to a close at Butler Motor Speedway. In what seems to be an annual tradition, for the second year a row I have a few takeaways from the final night of the season at Michigan’s only weekly sprint car track.
- Saturday’s storybook ending for Van Gurley Jr.’s championship season by winning the final feature event of the year is the stuff that writers like me dream of getting to tell our readers.
The ending was quite the contrast for the Gurley family, as one year ago officials were scurrying through the forest to find Van’s nephew Corbin in the trees after a slide job gone bad in turn. In a twist of irony Van’s winning move was in that same corner racing in close corners with Chase Ridenour.
While I don’t want to get too far into Gurley’s comeback because it’s going to be a subject of a Great Lakes Edition feature in the next 24-48 hours, but to have a driver that takes 22 years off and comes back to sprint car racing and accomplishes winning features and championships is remarkable.
The other thing that has impressed me with Gurley’s comeback is how fans still flock to him. I was a witness to this early in my writing career when Gurley came off the road and drove for the Bible family on a weekly basis at I-96 Speedway. I’ve seen Gurley fans have everything from old cars, t-shirts, and even tattoos in sensitive places over the years.
Even after the layoff those fans still show up to see Gurley perform, creating a new generation of loyal fans in the process. The charismatic personality still draws people in, and that was on display as the Butler faithful were making a lot of noise for Gurley’s championship effort.
- While Ridenour came up on the short end of the stick again on Saturday at Butler in what has been a difficult season, I hope Ridenour and the Williams racing team can stick together for another season.
Ridenour and Williams have shown speed this year, and I even remarked with Ridenour how well he was able to close in on cars in his heat race. Unfortunately, the team has had a string of terrible luck throughout the season on the track and with mechanical issues.
Not winning on Saturday was not from a lack of effort on their part as it came down to running out of racing room with a highly motivated opponent. Hopefully a small change of fortunes can see this team reach their full potential in 2025.
- The season championship night at Butler Motor Speedway lived up to the track’s ever improving reputation with a wild 25-lap feature event to close out the 2024 season.
From the start with Jason Blonde’s incredible wheel stand that he somehow kept under control going down the backstretch, the race for the lead during the closing stages of the main event with Chase Ridenour and Van Gurley Jr, and the fact the sprint car feature took the checkered flag around 9:57 p.m. on a night where the other three support divisions had enough cars for B-Mains.
The track surface was also as smooth as I’ve seen in recent years with the bottom and top coming into play in different points in the main event.
Five years ago, if you had asked me if I wanted to go to Butler for the weekly program season finale or have a colonoscopy, I’d ask you what time I’d have to report for the colonoscopy. The readers of this site are probably getting tired of me telling you what a great job Tim Wilber and his family and employees at Butler are doing, but it’s such an amazing turn around from where the facility was when they obtained it three years ago it’s been worth mentioning on every visit.
The most encouraging part of my visit was Wilber stopping by a driver’s pit area I happened to be in at the time. That driver asked Wilber if he was happy that the season was ending. Wilber’s answer was no, and that he could do this year-round. Having that kind of enthusiasm in a business that chews up and spits out promoters in this day in age is so encouraging for the future at Butler.