{"id":104812,"date":"2026-09-17T19:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dallas-glenn-wants-the-top-end-celebration-this-time\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T19:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:44:06","slug":"dallas-glenn-wants-the-top-end-celebration-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/dallas-glenn-wants-the-top-end-celebration-this-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Glenn Wants The Top-End Celebration This Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re wondering how the reigning Pro Stock world champion spent the first free weekend after winning the U.S. Nationals, the biggest race of his life by any measure, I can tell you it wasn\u2019t on a beach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually spent the whole weekend getting Sadie\u2019s car ready, since we have three in a row coming up,\u201d Dallas Glenn said on Monday\u2019s NHRA Countdown to the Championship media call, referring to his wife\u2019s Super Comp dragster. \u201cI had to get her car ready so that way I didn\u2019t have to worry about it for the Rockingham race. We\u2019re going to have a short turnaround in between Martin, Michigan and Rockingham. So I\u2019m sure we\u2019re going to come back to the shop and take everything apart, and I don\u2019t want to have to worry about also getting her car ready. So hers is ready to go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I grew up in a Pro Stock house, so I\u2019m admittedly a sucker for these guys to begin with, but an Indy winner moonlighting as his wife\u2019s crew chief the week before the playoffs start is about as drag racing as it gets.<\/p>\n

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It also tells you a little something about the frame of mind Glenn carried into Indy in the first place. He\u2019d gone out early at Brainerd, the regular season championship looked like it was KB Titan Racing teammate Greg Anderson\u2019s to lose, and the only way that was going to change was with some bad luck for a guy parked under the same awning. So Glenn quit thinking about it. \u201cEssentially I was just like, let\u2019s just go try to win Indy and just focus on Indy and not even think about points,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it was going to have to be, Greg was going to have to lose early, and I didn\u2019t want to have to root against anybody on my team to lose early. So I just went out, set out to kind of do my job.\u201d Then Anderson lost early on Monday, and the whole deal landed in his lap. \u201cIt definitely got a very big ball handed to me there second round,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, okay, well, now it\u2019s time to do my job, since Greg lost early. Let\u2019s see what we can do from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he did from there was win the race, which gave him his first U.S. Nationals title, his first regular season championship (and the $55,000 that comes with it) and the No. 1 seed for the Countdown. Ask him what the week since has been like and you get a pretty good read on the guy. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s kind of been like all the other weeks,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cWe\u2019ve kind of moved on and started preparing for the Countdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he said something I can\u2019t imagine hearing from the top seed in any other category. \u201cI won\u2019t be disappointed if I don\u2019t qualify No. 1 at the first race,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cI\u2019ll say that. Because historically, I don\u2019t know what my average is, but I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve done the best job of driving being the No. 1 qualifier.\u201d This came after Jordan Wick asked whether the parity in Pro Stock this year is real or just something the fans think they\u2019re seeing, and Glenn\u2019s answer was that it\u2019s very real and it\u2019s showing up in a strange place. \u201cIt almost seems like the No. 1 qualifier is not where you want to be, for whatever reason,\u201d he said. \u201cI really feel like the entire class is tightened up as a whole. The competition is extremely tough right now.\u201d He guessed that the No. 1 qualifier had lost first round four or five times this season. The moderator had the number handy (it\u2019s five), and Glenn laughed and owned up to being at least one of them.<\/p>\n

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His theory as to why is the kind of thing you only get from somebody who has lived on both sides of it, and in my opinion it\u2019s the best explanation of the mental side of Pro Stock I\u2019ve heard in a long time. \u201cWhen you have a few hundredths advantage, three or four hundredths advantage, you can kind of go up there and just be more relaxed and kind of more calm, and not worried about being on the ragged edge and shaking,\u201d Glenn explained. \u201cIt actually sometimes will help you cut better lights, because you\u2019re very confident going in there that your car\u2019s going to make up for any mistake that you might have. But when you\u2019re going up there set up really tight and you\u2019re really going for it, and you\u2019re trying to be on the edge and get every last thing, then sometimes it can make you almost go early and hesitate, and then be late, and just kind of opens the door for mistakes. So it\u2019s definitely way closer this year.\u201d It\u2019s the same reason a golfer with a four-shot lead on Sunday swings freer than the guy who\u2019s tied. Take the cushion away and everybody gets tight, including the fastest car on the property.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason Glenn seems so relaxed about a Countdown that opens at two tracks that are new to the schedule is that one of them isn\u2019t new to him at all. KB Titan has been testing at Rockingham for years. \u201cI\u2019ve made probably a few hundred runs there over the last five years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only variable I think is going to be the NHRA track prep versus what the track normally does for us for testing.\u201d His history with the place actually goes back to before he was in the driver\u2019s seat, when he was turning wrenches for the two guys who\u2019d eventually become his teammates. \u201cEven all the way back when I first started with Jason Line and Greg Anderson, I remember going there where Jason and Greg were just clicking off low 6.40s all day long, when we\u2019re testing either early in the year or late in the year,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cIt should be pretty exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

All those laps also came with a piece of intel that the rest of the field may want to write down. \u201cI\u2019m kind of interested to see what time the final round is going to be, because I know right around five, six o\u2019clock, the sun likes to set directly down at the end of the track,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s always just blinding the driver the whole way down the track. So it\u2019ll be pretty interesting to see whoever kind of makes it down to that point, how that\u2019s going to affect.\u201d (Pro Stock Motorcycle champ Richard Gadson, who has plenty of Rockingham laps of his own, backed him up on that a couple minutes later.) For what it\u2019s worth, NHRA\u2019s answer on the call was that eliminations at The Rock start at 11 a.m., which ought to help. \u201cSo there\u2019s definitely a little bit of a home court advantage there,\u201d Glenn allowed. \u201cAt least we kind of have an idea of where some of the bumps are and things like that.\u201d Michigan is a different story altogether. \u201cI\u2019ve never set foot on that property before, so I\u2019m kind of excited to add a new track to the list.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Auto Imagery\/Gary Nastase photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other thing Glenn has going for him won\u2019t show up on a run sheet. He\u2019s already been through about the most gut-wrenching version of a Countdown finish there is. In 2024 he rolled into the semifinals at Pomona as one of four drivers who could still win the championship, and he found himself standing in the staging lanes next to Erica Enders. \u201cI remember asking Erica in the lanes before the semis, I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t know how you\u2019ve done this six times already, because this is crazy,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cAnd she said, it doesn\u2019t get any easier.\u201d Anderson won the title that day, and Glenn got to watch the celebration from the outside. \u201cIt definitely makes you strive for wanting that a whole lot more,\u201d he said. \u201cI really felt like the year before had kind of, I don\u2019t know, burned all of my stress sensors out or what, but it had definitely helped prepare me for the added mental load that comes from being right in the thick and being hunted in the Countdown.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later he got his championship, just without the moment that\u2019s supposed to come with it. Pomona rained out, and he found out he was the champ when NHRA officials walked into the trailer to tell him. \u201cYou never want there to be a question mark on it,\u201d Glenn said. \u201cYou never want it to be like, oh, well, if Greg had just been able to get to the race that day, he could have won it. No matter how slim of a chance there is, you definitely want to make sure that thing is 100 percent sealed up, locked up, so that way there\u2019s no doubt that you earned that.\u201d What he\u2019s after this time, by the sound of it, is the version where you win a round, know that round was the one that did it, and get to lose your mind at the top end with your guys.<\/p>\n

Can he get there from the No. 1 seed, in a class where the top of the sheet has been a bad place to be all year? I think he can, and I think the fact that he\u2019s willing to say all of this out loud is a big part of why. There are six races to go, and he\u2019s made a few hundred runs at one of the tracks and never laid eyes on another. Sadie\u2019s car, for the record, is ready to go. I get the feeling her husband\u2019s is, too.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on September 17, 2026. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Dallas Glenn Wants The Top-End Celebration This Time<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re wondering how the reigning Pro Stock world champion spent the first free weekend after winning the U.S. Nationals, the biggest race of his life by any measure, I can tell you it wasn\u2019t on a beach.\u00a0 \u201cI actually spent the whole weekend getting Sadie\u2019s car ready, since we have three in a row […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}