By T.J. Buffenbarger
(September 25, 2025) — For the first time since June 22, 2013 the USAC AMMSOIL National Sprint Car Series returns to the state of Michigan for their first event at Butler Motor Speedway since they visited with winged sprint cars in 1990 with Hank Lower pulling off a victory at his home track.
This year’s visit will also feature a decent sized local contingent at Butler. Several of those drivers compete regularly without wings or at Butler and have had this date circled on the calendar since it was announced in the spring. With this being the first time USAC has come to Butler without wings, we went to some of the local drivers that either have raced without wings with the Great Lakes Traditional Sprints or have some non-wing experience and do a fair amount of winged sprint car racing at Butler to see what they think we will witness on Saturday.
Steve Irwin, Joshua Turner, and Keith Sheffer Jr. are just three of the local drivers that are taking on the USAC competitors in their home state on Saturday. I asked all three drivers questions this week on what we can expect to see at Butler on Saturday.
Will the local drivers have any sort of home track advantage?
Irwin, Sheffer, and Turner have extensive experience at Butler Motor Speedway throughout their careers. They will need all those laps to counter the level of competition they will see on Saturday with the USAC Competitors.
Turner, who lost the track championship a week ago at Butler to Jason Blonde by just a handful of points, thinks his advantage could be short lived.
“If it gets me through qualifying in decent shape, that’ll be about the end of it,” Turner said of any advantage he may have. The surface is what will throw guys for a loop, it might throw me for a loop too. Tim’s done a good enough job with keeping that place groomed to where I don’t foresee it getting rough, so it’ll make for good racing that way. That’s going to depend on how juiced up he wants to get it. These few days of rain is going to help him a little bit without having to wear out the water trucks, so that part will influence it as well.”
Irwin feels that the advantage for the local drivers may come later in the night rather than at the start of the program.
“I hope it’s an advantage later in the feature as a track goes away,” said Irwin of the ever-changing track conditions throughout the night at Butler. “If the track has any kind of tackiness in it and it’s just like qualifying on the top (the USAC Competitors) are so good. I don’t think that they will struggle. When it starts slicking it up, and you have got to move around, even with the wing, you don’t necessarily have to enter on the cushion. You can slide yourself, run down the hill off turn four and do that kind of stuff. And that some of that stuff might come into play once it gets slowed down.”
Sheffer added that the race track at Butler has similar features to other tracks the USAC National Sprint Car Series teams have seen throughout the years and it’s not likely they will be thrown off by anything they see Saturday at the high-banked 3/8-mile oval but feels all the laps he has had there this season in a winged and non-winged sprint car will help on Saturday.
“I mean, there’s similar tracks in Indiana that they run. Those guys do it for a living. They can pretty much look at a track and know what they must do to be able to go fast. It’s going to be super tough to be able to get a podium or a top five finish with them or even a top 10. I will say we do have some advantages, because we do run there quite a bit. So hopefully we don’t screw it up.”
Turner expects the track to be different due the non-wing cars and the caliber of drivers behind the wheel.
It’s going to be interesting,” said Turner of Saturday’s USAC program at Butler. “Non-wing cars typically will groom a racetrack off a lot quicker than what a wing car will, in my opinion. Just because of the way they are not locked in the racetrack quite as much.”
How will Butler race on Saturday with non-wing sprint cars?
While this is the first time for USAC at Butler Motor Speedway without wings, Butler has staged a handful of non-wing sprint car races over the years, most recently with the Great Lakes Traditional Sprints including in May when Korbyn Hayslett topped Irwin and Sheffer for the win.
Based on the competition level we should see on Saturday, Sheffer expects the top of the racetrack to be the fast way around Butler on Saturday.
“The last couple of times we’ve been (to Butler) there’s a top early in the race, then as we keep on going it dries out quite a bit and normally moves to the bottom. With as many good guys as there’s going to be, I really do think that we can get a curb built up and really get to flying around that joint.”
Despite following the BOSS tour for an entire season and making several other starts without wings throughout his career, this will be the first time Turner has turned laps at the track closest to his home in Osseo, Michigan without a wing on his sprint car.
With that experience Turner, who is much taller than some of his other competitors, is aware of the differences in running a non-wing car, including crashing one.
“I’ve let (the GLTS Teams) have all their fun with it. We’ve been focused on the wing thing for last few years,” said Turner of the recent non-wing races at Butler. “I’ll be honest; everybody wants to be a non-wing driver till you bust your ass real hard. Then you realize what it means to be a non-wing driver. I’ve been down that road, and I give all the respect in the world to those guys. I could gas it up and back it in there, but at the same time, I’m around 300 pounds and it hurts a lot worse when I do it versus some of these little tikes that their mom and dads are paying the bills.”
Irwin, a multiple time MTS and GLTS champion, enjoys non-wing racing at Butler more than with the wing due to the slower speeds allowing the driver to use more of the racetrack at any given time.
“When you race non wing at Butler, you’ve got to get so much more sideways in the in the in the corners that it opens a bunch of angles. The best way to describe it is when you run around there with a wing and you’re going straight, the place feels super narrow. When you run without the wing it feels like it’s twice as wide. You have angles and can run up the hill and down the hill. To me it’s 100 times more fun without the wing there.”
What needs to be the result for Saturday to consider the night to be a success?
All three drivers will be piloting cars owned by themselves for family on Saturday. While taking on competitors that are solely focused on non-wing racing throughout the year, the trio of Irwin, Turner, and Sheffer have some lofty goals for Saturday’s program, including the extra money put up by USAC CEO Kevin Miller for the top three finishing residents and a $6,000 bonus should Michigan driver win the feature event on Saturday.
Irwin hopes to check off a box on his bucket list of finishing in the top ten in a USAC National Sprint Car Series event, a task he has come close to doing on multiple occasions before mechanical issues have thwarted the effort.
“If I could win the heat race on Floracing, that would be cool, but to run in the top 10 in USAC would be awesome. I’ve had a couple of top 10’s going and blown engines, like in Wisconsin. I think my best finish with USAC is 11th, like two or three times, so a top 10 would be pretty good.
Sheffer is coming off a top 10 finish with USAC Saturday during the finale of the 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora Speedway. Sheffer was quick to credit some help in gaining some speed in his family-owned non-wing program that has only seen the track a handful of times this season.
“My Dad’s been talking to a lot of people. A lot of people have been helping us out recently. My crew chief Sean on the number 14, he’s helped us and Ricky Lewis, he’s also helped us a little bit with setup wise, and it’s, it’s helped us.”
With Saturday being his first non-wing start since racing with USAC in Ocala in 2022, Turner has more modest goals
“Depending on car count, if we were able to run top 15, something like that, top 12, I would say that’s probably all right with me…and load the thing in the trailer. Things get hairy quick with the non-wing deal. A lot is going to depend on just me being able to get comfortable, if I can get up on a wheel sooner rather than later.”