Dallas Glenn always dreamed of one day being able to turn on win lights and have the type of season that Greg Anderson and Jason Line enjoyed throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
Growing up racing quarter midgets and other circle-track cars as a child, Glenn realized from an early age that wasn’t the life for him. When his dad, Steve, went drag racing, Glenn thought he would give that life a try, serving as a crew member on his dad’s team at the age of 16. That, he said, is where he got hooked.
Soon after, Glenn was competing himself in the Super Pro class in a ‘55 Chevy wagon, and then moved into the sportsman ranks behind the wheel of a 1968 El Camino. Not long after that, Glenn got his first taste of the high-horsepower world of Pro Stock racing.
Glenn got a job with KB Titan Racing and soon found himself on the road crewing for Anderson and Line, enjoying successes from the starting line as his famed drivers hoisted trophy after trophy.
So when KB Titan Racing driver Bo Butner retired from full-time driving duties at the end of 2020, Glenn got his own shot behind the wheel.
“It’s always been part of my competitive nature,” Glenn said. “Anytime I am watching somebody do something like that and is extremely competitive and achieving great things, I want to give it my shot and see how I stack up. I always felt like I had the ability to do it, it was just reaching down and pulling that to the surface.”
During his rookie year, Glenn won three races and was named the 2021 NHRA Rookie of the Year. It was obvious that Glenn was on his way to big things.
While 2022 wasn’t as successful, Glenn has performed with a fury in 2023, winning three of the season’s first seven races for the class and leading the Pro Stock championship by a wide margin over second-place Deric Kramer.
“I don’t have too many complaints” about the start to the year, Glenn said. “I am just trying to keep the momentum going. It’s really hard to win one of these, and usually when you win you have a couple of lucky rounds in there. I kind of ran out of luck on certain races. In Bristol, I was against Greg (Anderson) and I was beating him when I got a little too out of shape and had to bail out to save the car. You look at Charlotte where I just made two little mistakes, that cost me that one. These races are really tough and you want to come out here and do the best you can. I’ve got a really, really good car and I need to capitalize on it because it can disappear in an instant.”
And Glenn knows a thing or two about how fickle this sport can be.
While he was helping crew Anderson’s car at KB Racing, the winningest driver in Pro Stock history suffered through a two-year losing streak, and that reality hangs around in the back of Glenn’s mind at all times.
“Greg, being the most successful Pro Stock driver out here with 101 race wins, went through a streak of two years where he didn’t win a single race while I was working for him,” Glenn said. “So there are definitely highs and lows, and there are times you are struggling and times where you have the car to beat. I need to capitalize while I have the car to beat. I feel like we have done a pretty good job of that. I had three race wins in four races and that fourth race I lost by four-thousandths in the final. As long as I go out there and do my job and make good runs, I feel like they are definitely going to know I was here.”
Of course, that time with Anderson, as well as Line, were also influential in teaching Glenn what a strong work ethic looks like, and how hard work and dedication can pay off in the end.
“I look up to a lot of people, but really Jason Line and how influential he is on building and working on his own cars, and Greg Anderson, are at the top,” Glenn said. “There is not a single person that works as hard as Greg Anderson. He is in the shop seven days a week, all day long. You can’t keep him out of the shop. That kind of work ethic, with the determination he has, he can go out there and outrun everybody by five-hundredths and then come back and point out 20 things that went wrong and what we can do better.”
With wins coming at Pomona, Las Vegas and Chicago in a four-race span, and the car consistently among the best each and every week, is it too early to start thinking about what might be at the end of the year?
“That is too far down the road,” Glenn said with a laugh. “If I have this car, this performance where I am constantly in the top three or four every session starting in Reading for the first race of the Countdown, then I will start thinking about it. You can always go into the Countdown leading by 500 points if you want, but if you don’t do good in the Countdown then it doesn’t mean anything.”
Glenn had his worst qualifying effort of the season Saturday in Norwalk, placing his Chevrolet Camaro seventh on the ladder. However, qualifying is one thing and eliminations another, as Glenn raced his way to a runner-up, thus extending his already considerably point lead.
