One of Scotland’s brightest young up-and-coming racing talents, Rory Butcher, will swap his Formula Ford car for a Porsche 911 when he goes head-to-head with some of the country’s fastest saloon racers in the Porsche Carrera Cup at Knockhill next weekend (Aug 16/17).
The 21-year-old from Kirkcaldy is continuing to make rapid progress through the ranks having gathered experience in the Scottish Ford XR2 and Scottish Mini championships before sliding into his FFord car last year.
And having recorded three wins in his single-seater, the most recent last weekend at Knockhill, Butcher is hoping the technical gremlins which have hampered his season so far don’t follow him into his Porsche debut.
“This season I’ve been dogged by problems in the FFord,” he explained.
“I’ve had wheelbearings just give up immediately before qualifying and at the national round at Anglesey the engine blew just before qualifying.”
“All the guys know I seem to have had all the bad luck this year, but I’m turning into a positive. What do they say? It’s character-building.”
Character-building maybe, but Butcher son of Knockhill owner Derek has shown not only serious pace this year, but also a cannae knack of being able to overtake.
At Caldwell Park he powered through from 21st at the back of the grid to finish eighth, while at Anglesey he carved his way through from 20th to finish sixth. Now though he takes on the big boys in their Porsches.
“Yeh, it’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve,” Butcher, who has been picking the brains of fellow Fifer and former Porsche Cup winner Barry Horne, continued. “It’s a completely different way of driving. ”
“The Porsche handles completely differently to my FFord. Whereas I can slide my singleseater through the corners, with the 911 you have to brake in a straight line and feed the power in very, very smoothly. You can’t afford to get out of line otherwise the car will pirouette round about you.”
“I’ve also had to learn pretty quickly how to heel-and-toe, so that’s been fun.” But while the learning aspect may well be fun, Butcher who has tested the 911 belonging to Tommy Dreelan of his Aberdeen-based sponsor, Qserve is fully aware how important this outing could be.
“Of course I know my way round the circuit,” he smiled, “but I’m looking to learn a huge amount from this experience. It’s going to be terrific working with a race team preparing the car and I’ll have to be able to feed information back to them.”
“Personally, it will give me the opportunity to get my name out there on a national stage. I’ll be approaching the whole weekend sensibly. I know I’m not a leading contender in the championship, but ideally I’d love to finish in the top five.”
