Championship drag racers learn early in their careers that to be successful; one must successfully block out all distractions and focus on the task at hand. Let the record reflect that having a nosebleed might not have been considered one of those likely distractions.
Even Dallas Glenn, a driver known for his intense focus that has enabled a penchant for recording double-oh reactions, had to do a double-take just before the first round of the NHRA Vegas 4-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas, Nev.
Now, we aren’t talking about a major bleed, but it was enough to get in his head before firing the car. This meant as he rolled into the burnout box… drip, drip, drip.
Backing up from the burnout… drip, drip, drip.
Creeping into the staging beams, and in a four-wide configuration… drip, drip, drip.
“I almost completely blew it first round,” Glenn admitted. “I was staging, and when I fired the car up, my nose started to bleed. So I was dealing with that inside the car. That was an interesting situation. Being in the desert here for three weeks, I’m a little dried out.
“But it was enough to be a little distracting.”
When the trees flashed green, Glenn was tardy by his standards (.059) and was able to outrun Aaron Stanfield and David Cuadra to finish second to Mason McGaha.
“I didn’t see Lane Two stage and just didn’t go onto the two-step until right before the tree came down,” Glenn said. “I was way late, just dead late. And got lucky enough with the horsepower to get the win. Still made a decent run going into second round. The clutch pedal felt weird on my foot when I went onto the two-step and overcompensated there.”
Glenn went on to win the event, getting by a first round, which, for a lesser driver, could have ended before it began, edging Matt Hartford across the stripe in a quad that included Matt Latino and Greg Anderson.
In true DBD fashion, and for those not up on the lingo… Dallas, being Dallas, handled the health issue back in the pit.
“I took care of that while I was doing the clutch,” he revealed. “So it was a little interesting. So it definitely made second round a little less stressful.”
It was business as usual as Glenn won the second round, scoring the quickest run of his quad and finishing ahead of Matt Latino.
“I go into the final and then made sure that I held [gas pedal] down and probably held it down a little too hard,” Glenn admitted. “Greg definitely was on his way to earning his next one until the luck streak ended for him. But it’s a good day. The car’s working great. I didn’t do too bad. But at the end, you only got to do good enough.”
In the final round, Glenn beat Matt Hartford and Matt Latino on a holeshot, going 6.649 at 206.83 for his second win for the second time this season. It’s also his third victory at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, as Glenn used a strong .030 reaction time to hold off Hartford, who finished second with a 6.638 at 205.85.
The focus now turns to Concord for the second of three four-wide events this season. As far as he sees it, things will return as close to being normal as they can be.
“We’re going to make some small changes going from the altitude here at Vegas to Charlotte at home,” Glenn said. “One thing that will be nice is I get to sleep in my own bed every night and cuddle up next to my wife and my dog.
“When it comes to four-wide, you just go up there and you need to make sure that you just try to stay focused through all the chaos. Having three people, all three or four people, all stage at the same time is very, very distracting, and it definitely catches you off guard. So you definitely have to stay focused through everything and just try to manage the chaos as best you can until you get to the final. And then you can just throw the kitchen sink at it.”
