XTF’s Glidden Goes In-Depth On Win For The Ages

It was a run that was undoubtedly one of the best of a storied career.

So when Mickey Thompson Extreme 10.5 driver Billy Glidden went an incredible 3.862 at 192.63 miles per hour to set a huge career-best and win the Northeast Drags II presented by Penske at Maple Grove Raceway, a simple description simply won’t do.

Going into great detail on a run that many will remember for quite some time, Glidden explained the massive thrill of going on a holeshot run that was just good enough to slip past Chuck Ulsch and his 3.855 at 202.82 mph.

“The thing with my car is I manually shift. There’s no autoshift in it at all, so I drive by feel and sound,” said Glidden, who tied Ashley Owens for the all-time wins lead with 13. “I have to be very cautious in the first 60 feet with these tires to try to keep from upsetting the tire. Once you knock them off, they really don’t recover.

“So first gear is usually pretty standard on every run, but once I start shifting, like in 3000 feet of air, I’ll run fourth gear nearly to the finish line. I’ll put it in fifth gear and pull the chute out. On this particular run, I was in fifth gear in 3.48 seconds.

“So, that’s enough difference that, yes, you really feel that. You just feel the car accelerating harder through the 60 through 400 feet.

“I can always hear the blower guys and I didn’t see or hear Chuck until after I had left off, so it was a very nice run and a very exciting time to see the win light come on.”

How’s that for detail?

As awesome as the run was, Glidden’s picture-perfect description made it even better on a second viewing.

So, did the run feel special to Glidden while he was rocketing down the right lane at the historic track?

“I don’t really pay attention, but when I let the clutch out, I probably don’t take a breath until sometime well into the shutdown,” Glidden said.

“The car is just accelerating that hard and I think of those cartoons where it shows the person with their face flapping in the win, or with the dog with his eyes being blown open. It isn’t really like that, but it is a fun way to explain it to someone.”

It was apt for that run, which was one of the best side-by-side races in Extreme 10.5 history.

Glidden had an .028 reaction time to hold off Ulsch, who gained ground quickly during the back half of his own standout run.

“That was awesome,” Glidden said. “Going against Chuck, I knew I had to run well, and I had to do everything right. This was very satisfying and a very gratifying win for us.”

It marked Glidden’s first win in 13 months, a frustrating notion for him after the potential he showed with a new combination late in 2011.

He ran a career-best (at the time) 3.882 at Dallas last October and entered 2012 with a wave of momentum. Glidden qualified No. 1 in Houston to kick off the year, but tire shake ended his day in the semifinals.

A race later, more bad luck ensued and Glidden improbably didn’t qualify in Bristol.

His finicky new combination has been difficult to solve, but things came together in a major way at Maple Grove.

“That’s the biggest (win) we’ve had in a year,” Glidden said. “It was very satisfying. When you get stagnant and constant seeming like you’re running uphill, we wondered if we could pull off another win.

“We’ve been working at it really diligently and it really wasn’t paying dividends. Everything just came together for us really nice. It was very exciting to win a race and run so well. We’re still riding the high of that.”

(Photos by ADRL/Richards)