Glenn Butcher, the 2024 PDRA Elite Top Sportsman world champion, gets a good look at the retaining walls on both sides of the track – multiple times – as he manages to avoid crashing after getting out of shape early into his third qualifying attempt at the PDRA Brian Olson Memorial World Finals. Other than launching a timing cone and smacking the wheelie bars into the right-side wall, Butcher kept his Albertpowered Butcher & Son Demolition’ 69 Camaro from touching anything in the wild incident. Clips of the save went viral on Facebook almost immediately, racking up nearly 10 million views on Drag IllustrateD’ s post alone. Unfortunately, the incident effectively dashed Butcher’ s hopes of a second consecutive world championship.

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y R O B E R T R I C H A R D

V I R G I N I A M O T O R S P O R T S PA R K D I N W I D D I E, V I R G I N I A S AT U R DAY, O C T O B E R 4 T H, 2 0 2 5

68 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated. com Issue 197