Team Info:

Driver - Tom Butherus

Driver Bio - Tom attended his first drag race in 1964 and was hooked by the sights, sounds & smells of drag racing. “ It was heaven, I just loved it. I started racing whatever I had to drive, initially a 1959 Plymouth, then progressed to a 396 powered 55 Chevy street/strip car in ‘66, then in 1967, partnered with a buddy on a 64 Rambler AHRA A/Hot Rod; my 396 and his car, as I couldn’t keep axles in my 55 and he couldn’t keep motors in his car!”

He went off to college, which ended his active racing, but he attended every drag race he could in the Missouri/Illinois area as a spectator. And what a heyday that was. Front motored AA fuelers, gas twins, altereds and gassers, wow! Match races abounded and shows routinely included the early greats in all categories. Tom loved the altered wheelbase funnies, but his real favorites were the blown altereds and gassers. Borsch, Fitzgerald, Hough, Matsubara, Cook (SWC), Hess, Kohler, Montgomery and their glorious compatriots became his heroes, and he yearned to one day run a blown beast like theirs. After college, Tom moved to Ohio and acquired a ’67 Camaro in to which he put the trusty 396. A move to Kentucky found him regularly at Bluegrass and Edgewater running in D/Gas. The Camaro got totaled in a towing accident in ‘74, but that venerable 396 was OK. A glass 48 Fiat built on 32 Ford frame rails, a sixties era A/A was bought, and in went the carbureted 396. Tom had his altered, albeit less huffer. A move to Kansas City in the mid seventies and they (a wife and 3 kids by then) were at KCIR racing brackets and AHRA’s 9.90 Pro Gas. A final relocation in 1983 to Wichita, and racing started getting infrequent due to family necessities, but in 1998 with kids grown and a new partner, the car, now sporting a 23T bucket was stretched to 120 inches from the original 106 and a Ford 9 inch replaced the original early Chevy rearend. The driver’s compartment still sat on 32 Ford framerails, but the cage was updated to certify at 7.50. A used 6:71 blower was located and a blown 482 inch Chevy was born. He had his blown altered! Of course, after the first pass, he realized that it had him. They (Tom and his partner/crewchief/wife) began running with the Mid America 7.90 group. When that fizzled, they joined Marriot’s OFA group, which is all heads-up, blown altered racing. Nirvana!

Up to 2000, that old car ran a best of 7.50 , but needed to step up to keep pace with the group. It could not be certified quicker than 7.50, so it was retired for pure nostalgia racing and a new car was built. The current “Rude Rat Too” sports a 14:71 aluminum Chevy combo that has been in the sixes over 200 mph. Tom and Phyllis run with the OFAA group and plan to do some NPCA racing as well as selected open nostalgia races, and intend to keep at it as long as the parts and their aging bodies last.

Crew Chief - Phyllis Butherus
Hometown - Goddard, Texas

Racecar Info:

Car Bio - The chassis is a home-built, based on a '32 Ford framerails - really. The cockpit still sits on those, while the rear section is 3 x 2 tubing. It had an early Chevy rearend with a MT aluminum center section (I still have it), but I replaced it with a 9" Ford when we started racing the car with a blower in the M.A. 7.90 Association. We also stretched it at that time to 124" using 2 x 3 tubing and replaced the semi-elliptical spung front axle with coil overs using the original (narrowed) tube axle and '48 Ford spindles. The cage was also replaced then (1996) so that it could certify to 7.50. The motor we will be using is the same one (block, crank, heads & 6:71 supercharger) that we started with for blown alcohol racing in 1996. It is a cast Iron 489 Chevy with Chevy aluminum heads topped by that Littlefield 6:71 and Enderle bird injector. We will be running a 'glide and 10" converter. The front wheels are Halibrand magnesium 12 spokes, and last year we acquired a set of Halibrand "kidney bean" 16" magnesium wheels (from one of Wiebe's front motor AA/FD's) and have a set of the M&H nostalgia spec tires that we are going to try for the TBFA racing. They are barely 12' wide, so we will see, though the nostalgia fuelers have run 5.6's on them! "Course, that is with a pretty trick slipper clutch. Anyway, the best the car ran in that trim, except with 15 x 15 slicks, was a 4.73/146 and a 7.53/181.That was in 2000 at an OFAA race in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Chassis - Home Built '32 Ford
Powerplant - 489 Chevy
Horsepower - 1000
Transmission - Powerglide
Rear End - 9" Ford