Rory back in Porsche 911posted in KNOCK02 | 09 | 2010

TWO YEARS after he dazzled the opposition when he scored two fifth places on his debut in the Porsche Carrera Cup, Fifer Rory Butcher will again take on the big guns at his home circuit this weekend.

The 23-year-old son of Knockhill owner Derek, Rory shone in Formula Ford before graduating this year to the British GT Championship in a KTM where he helped his ABG Motorsport team to victory at Silverstone, partnered by Ben Harvey.

Now though the youngster, who only narrowly missed out on being awarded a scholarship into this year's Carrera Cup, will drive one of the Celtic Racing Porsches run by Aberdonian Tommy Dreelan.

"It's great to get this opportunity," Butcher admitted after his first run in the car. "It probably took me about 10 laps or so to get back into the way of driving the Porsche, but it came to me pretty quickly and the times started coming down consistently.

"I've got back into the correct technique, because it's very easy to find yourself overdriving the Porsche. The big problem, of course, is if you apply the power too soon coming out the corner you lose the back-end and your speed just disappears."

The youngster though admits he'll find it tough to replicate his results of 2008 when he drove the official 'guest' 911.

"The car I'm in this weekend is a 2006 model which is about 20bhp down on the modern cars," he explained. "Having said that, my car has shorter gears, so that will definitely be an advantage at Knockhill.

"The other thing is the championship is now really, really tough with more new cars in it. The grid's normally covered at the front by only a few tenths, so I think if I can finish in the top 10 at least once, I'll have done a good job.

"It's the perfect opportunity to put myself in the shop window in front of the big teams for next year, so I'll be making sure I do a good job."

Jim McGill