Butler looking for a ride in 2008

Franklin Butler had a pretty decent year in Late Models at Old Dominion Speedway in 2007. But, for the 40-year-old Chesterfield, Va., driver. it wasn’t close enough to the success of his two previous seasons at ODS.

In 2005, Butler won the track championship with two wins and 19 top fives. Even more remarkably, he had 13 top threes. In 2006, he finished second in the division with one win and 14 top fives.

Last year, he ran a limited schedule of 15 races and came in eighth, with eight top fives and three wins.

“It was a mixed season last year,” said Butler, who, at this point, doesn’t have a ride for the 2008 season. “It was a roller coaster ride last year because we started out with a bang with a win in the opener. But after two races, we found out were we not going to be running that car anymore. Fortunately, everything fell into place to let us team up with Sam [Beaty], who let us drive his car.”

Butler had been teaming up with the father and son owners, Leonard and Lennie Miller, in 2005 and 2006. But the team had been running on a tight budget, and when Butler crashed out in the second race of the season, the Millers decided that they couldn’t continue the season.

“That was the reality of the budget we ran on for the last two years,” Butler said. “In 2005, when we won the championship, we were literally on a race-to-race basis. Had we wrecked in ‘05, obviously we would’ve never won the championship because we probably would have missed a race or two, if not more. So in two years, we really never had a big wreck until the second race of last year.”

After teaming up with Beaty, Butler still had two wins and seven top fives. He also had a number of races when he had a good chance of winning but didn’t get a chance to prove it because of mechanical failures or crashes.

“We had a fuel filter problem one night, a spark plug wire problem another and got spun out and wrecked on still another night,” Butler said. “Or we’d get in little accidents that would keep us out of victory lane.”

Butler’s most satisfying win came during twin 75s on June ninth. In the first race, his car was turned around and wrecked. The right front fender and right half of the front nose were laying under the right front tire in the front straightaway after the wreck. But Butler’s team and people from other crews worked furiously to get the car back together for the second race, and they did.

“Even though we obviously had fresher tires than most of the folks in that second race, to come back from as wrecked as that car was and to win the second race was very, very gratifying,” Butler said.

Butler also enjoyed running door-to-door in the season opener with Dustin Storm and beating him.

“We ran quite a few laps side-by-side and that was just good, clean racing,” Butler said. “That was very satisfying.”

Now, Butler’s fans are keeping their fingers crossed that he’ll be able to pick up a ride for 2008.