The 2022 season was a hard pill to swallow for KB Racing.
The Pro Stock powerhouse team watched as rival Elite Motorsports dominated the class culminating with Erica Enders winning her fifth world championship.
KB Racing made changes late in the 2022 campaign to try and recapture its glory.
KB Titan Racing was formed late in 2022 when Titan Racing Engines merged with KB Racing after team founder and owner Ken Black retired and sold the business. The engine-building powerhouse is now owned and operated by a group that includes Pro Mod drivers Jim Whiteley and Eric Latino.
The new team put in the hours in the offseason to get the KB Titan Racing Pro Stock drivers back on top.
The team’s hard work has paid off, especially for driver Dallas Glenn.
Glenn won his third race of the season when he clocked a 6.562-second time at 210.05 mph in the finals to defeat Deric Kramer, who slowed to 12.594 seconds at the Gerber Collision and Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals presented by PEAK Performance in Chicago.
“I’m feeling great,” Glenn said. “I’m still worn out because it is a lot of work when you go to a final, but I’m definitely enjoying every bit of this.”
This is Glenn’s seventh career NHRA Pro Stock national event win and first at Chicago, which returned to the NHRA schedule for the first time since 2019. Glenn’s victory parade Sunday consisted of wins over Chris McGaha, Greg Anderson, Jerry Tucker, and Kramer.
Glenn, who drives a Camaro, leads the points standings with a 581 total, while Matt Hartford is second at 413 points.
“My day started off just how I wanted it,” Glenn said. “Just go up there and stay relaxed and just make a nice, clean, smooth run. My gameplan was just to go up there and do my thing and stay in my own zone and make nice, clean runs and stay relaxed. I came up for round two against Greg (Anderson) and when I left, the car wanted to leave and then it did not, and it took a hard left, and that’s when my day got whacky. I definitely have to thank the Safety Safari because they did a great of prepping out near the wall where I was. I managed to drive through it and hold off, Greg. I knew they were going to make a lot of changes for the next round, and then they basically turned the Pro Stock car into a Super Stocker for the size of the wheel stands it was doing.
“Rob Downing, Dave Connolly, and Nate Van Wassenhove did a fantastic job making sure this car got down four clean runs today. Even though I didn’t do the best job of driving my last two runs, I was really close to the centerline in the semis and made a couple little wiggles and hit a couple of rev limiters there in the final, but it was good enough to get the job done. I didn’t really do a good job of driving today, but it was just good enough.”
When Glenn goes up against Anderson, his teammate and the all-time winningest driver in NHRA Pro Stock history with 101 wins, he tries to
keep things in perspective.
“The main thing that is in my head, as much as I want to win, I also want my teammates to win as well,” Glenn said. “Any time you race a teammate, you don’t want to see them lose, but my desire for me to win is stronger than that, so I try not to celebrate too much in front of them. The good news is at least one of us is going on. It guaranteed one car in the next round, even though we would prefer to have all of them go to the next round. Fortunately, it always can’t work out like that. I know I just need to keep trusting my car and do the best job that I can do.”
Glenn acknowledged his team worked tirelessly in the offseason to get back to championship form, which is why he has three wins in six races this season.
“We did a lot of testing over the winter,” he said. “I’m in a different car than I was last year, and it seems to be agreeing with me a lot. I feel comfortable in this car, and it makes very nice runs. We did a lot of testing, and they did a lot of dyno work over the wintertime. We got our butts kicked last year, and we really wanted to return the favor this year, and I think the hard work is paying off.”