We really should have seen this coming. Dallas Glenn attended his first drag race before he had even taken his first steps, and once that baby boy got his first whiff of tire smoke and race fuel, it was just a matter of time. In just a few weeks, Glenn will make his NHRA Pro Stock debut at the 2021 Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals in Gainesville, March 12-14.
The Mooresville, N.C., transplant hails from the Pacific Northwest, where he made a respectable name for himself as a Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Sportsman competitor. He’s been an active part of the eight-time championship winning KB Racing Pro Stock crew since 2013, but Glenn’s own racing accomplishments stretch back to his teens, when he earned the Sportsman title in the 2008 Race of Champions at the Division 6 Summit Racing Series Finals. For most racers, that would have meant a trip to Pomona and the NHRA Finals to race for the national championship. At just 17 years of age, though, Glenn was not eligible to compete at a national event (the rule has since been amended).
But here’s the thing about Dallas Glenn: he rebounds well from both disappointment and victory, and that could prove to be a very beneficial quality for someone entering one of the most competitive and demanding categories for a driver in NHRA drag racing. Glenn is absolutely driven to win, as evidenced by his Top and Mod double-up at the IHRA race at Darlington in 2019, but when he doesn’t, he simply resets. When he does, he smiles real-big and then goes home and gets back to work.
The disappointment of being blocked from running with the cool kids at Pomona in 2008 faded quickly, and Glenn gave it his all the next season. Between his shifts at Dale Green’s DG Machine, an engine shop where he was employed in Auburn, Wash., Glenn raced Sportsman and Super Pro in the bracket series at Seattle’s Pacific Raceways. He went to nine final rounds in 2009 – including a runner-up at the Pinks All Out event at the Northwest facility.
The third-generation racer made his Stock Eliminator debut in Seattle that year behind the wheel of Tom Turner’s Doctor Injector ’96 Corvette – the car he raced to the Pinks All Out final – and yes, he finally got to take a swing at the NHRA Finals. Glenn picked up a couple of round wins in Pomona to cap off his first year in Stock Eliminator, and he came back the next season and reached the Pomona final round to finish No. 9 in the 2010 Stock Eliminator points.
Glenn claimed his first national win at the spring race in Las Vegas in 2011, and he proved his diversity as a driver as he scored that Super Gas Wally in Shane Thompson’s ridiculously fast, big block Chevy-powered 1967 Nova. Glenn has division trophies in Stock and Super Stock as well, and he’s quite keen on bracket racing the 1968 El Camino his grandmother gifted him for graduation. Last November, he brought home a couple of big checks for final round and quarterfinals appearances at Piedmont Dragway’s Fall Footbrake Frenzy.
But let’s go way, way back, just for fun. Glenn got a taste for adrenaline racing quarter midgets as a kid with his family, and that style of racing really stuck for his brother, Dana. The drag racing thing, though, stuck with Dallas, and it started with his grandfather, Don Glenn. The elder Glenn bracket raced the ’55 Chevy wagon that his grandson would later race in Super Pro. That wagon has seen a bunch of drag strip in its life as all of the self-proclaimed “Glenn Boyz,” including dad Steve, have made many passes in it.
Early in his career, young Glenn expanded his racing experience to include Super Pro in a borrowed dragster and Top Sportsman in a Jerry Bickel-built former Pro Stock car. Notably, the first time he raced the ’94 Bickel Camaro (owned by Shane Thompson, by the way), he cut a .009-second light and clocked a 7.86-second pass in the quarter-mile. Glenn was a thousandth too quick at the finish line in his first round, but that shouldn’t be a problem in Pro Stock.
“My ultimate goal is to race Pro Stock,” said Glenn in 2010 after his turn in Top Sportsman. “Sitting there all strapped in, wearing an SFI 15 fire suit like they do, and using a B&M Pro Bandit shifter that has a 45-style grip that feels like a Liberty Pro Stock shifter – it was a lot of fun.”
And it’s about to get a lot more fun for the spirited 30-year-old. Look for Glenn to race a total of four Pro Stock events in 2021 with the support of RAD Torque Systems and Silver State Plumbing. When he’s not racing, he’ll carry on as car chief for fellow Pro Stock racer Kyle Koretsky.
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