Todd Buttrick, Club Ford driver
A hard core car guy, he never made the jump to racing. Todd built and drove all over the place in his Factory five Cobra, I think he even won some contests with it.
He was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer about 3 years ago. On his bucket list was to go race real race cars but because time was short he felt he would have to pass. I had already retired from racing, sold my Crossle 16F, and had moved on to soaring, just as challenging but much quieter.
I called some old connections from my own racing days and located a car I said we would share. I could get him out on the track. He came with me to pick up my Lola 202. He took one look at me in the car and said "Pheck this, we never shared well anyway, I'm getting my own car, know of any others?" I said yes I did.
He bought Bob Bruce's car in the fall and started tinkering.
I told him to do as many schools as he could and make mistakes on someone else's equipment before the FFCS season started up again in the spring. He really took to driving race cars. We did the Allen Berg school at Laguna Seca together and that was a real thrill. He did three schools in all.
We then went to the VRG weekend at Summit Point. Yup, the one that was cancelled. We managed to get in one day of driving.
This was the only time I was able to keep him behind me. We then did Thompson, where every single racing gremlin found Todd. Charlie Collings rescued Todd that weekend.
In New Jersey, it all came together for him. My gear box was eating itself up, but Todd got faster and faster every session.
That's me behind my brother doing all I can just to keep up.
He did so well that weekend, he won the Field Champion Award.
We really thought we had more races to do together. Sadly, either the chemo, the pain meds, his injured knee, something always managed to frustrate another race weekend together.
He loved the cars, but more importantly, he loved all you guys involved in the racing. It was the people that really made it for him and made the last remaining months on earth truly happy times for him.
Thanks all of you for helping me get this bucket list done for my brother, he really loved it.
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