As Drag Illustrated celebrates its 20th anniversary and approaches the milestone 200th issue, we’re diving into the archives and republishing some of favorite features from 190-plus issues of the magazine. This cover story by Ian Tocher on Glenn Butcher, who won the 2024 PDRA Elite Top Sportsman world championship, is from DI #89 in July of 2014.
It’s the off season and most of Glenn Butcher’s race shop has been turned into a basketball court, complete with baskets at both ends and free-throw marks on the floor. His new ’69 Camaro Top Sportsman car, along with the race rig, is neatly squeezed into one end of the 104-by-52-foot structure while Butcher and several friends engage in a spirited game of hoops. Right now it’s basketball; next weekend it might be floor hockey or maybe set up for the epic, annual New Year’s Eve party that draws guests each year from several surrounding states and Canada. More often than not, though, it’s just a place to hang out and down a few adult beverages while bench racing and watching the snow fly until it’s time to race again.
Butcher grew up on this land. He built a house nearly 10 years ago on 22 acres of lush farmland that used to be part a 104-acre tract worked by his father, Fred, and mom Geraldine, where they had already raised three boys and a girl before Glenn came along, 14 years after his sister…