Ade Butler graduated from North High School, where he competed in both basketball and baseball. He witnessed his first midget race in 1937 at Merchants Park, and then began working on midget race cars in 1937 for owner/driver Burton Spickler. He served as a gunner and bombardier in World War II. Upon his return, he built his first midget in 1947. He continued to build cars for himself, as well as others, through the 1960s. Many of the top midget race car drivers of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s drove cars he built.
Ade passed away in 2014.