Do you have many people helping with your current team?

Glidden: It’s just [common-law wife] Shannon and I, so when we’re gone from the shop, it’s closed. It’s just us two.

Do you talk with your father very often about your racing program?

Glidden: I can’t say that we get together and talk about that, but I see him every once in a while. I mean he goes to work on the east side of Indianapolis every morning really early and I work actually there by the house. I see Mom, but I don’t see Dad a whole lot.

So, he has no influence or input on your car’s setup.

Glidden: Oh no, Dad doesn’t know anything about anything I’m doing. He’s just never known anything about what I’m doing. He did drive the car once and that was … well, he just didn’t understand. So, he is not really aware of anything that I do. I mean, he understands his racing and he knows what I’m doing, but as for setup, he couldn’t tell me to do this or try that or anything.

Do you plan to stick with this class long term, or do you have plans to enter something else in the future?

Glidden: Most places fear making this combination—forget competitive, let’s not use that word—fair, because of what we’re capable of doing.

The turbo small blocks, you mean?

Glidden: No. The sanctions, or even outlaw races or whatever, will not make a rule that makes a 400-inch small-block Ford, let’s call it, not even on an even keel, but a lot closer, for fear that we would come there and do what we do.

That’s what I was referring to earlier, though. That has to be frustrating to feel there’s a “Billy Glidden Rule” in force.

Glidden: What can you do about it? Nothing.

What about running down south with ORSCA? Is your car legal for Outlaw 10.5 action?

Glidden: From where I’m sitting right now, I’d have to add 600 pounds. I run real close to what they run right now at the eighth mile and I’d have to add 600 pounds.

Outlaw 10.5 offers some pretty good purses, though; are you not at all interested in building a car to fit those rules?

Glidden: Not with my budget.

That brings up a good point. Is it difficult to attract backing for a class like Outlaw Street?

Glidden: It’s hard to get backing for anything. Just look at the dwindling sponsors in the NHRA, or anywhere else, for that matter. That’s why it’s very important that we win and not just show up.

People take this wrong, but this is our job and not very many people go to their job competing for their paycheck. We go to our job and compete to get paid and that’s why it’s so important that we have to do a good job all the time. If we don’t do the job, we don’t get paid that week. When you leave the shop you’re in the red right away; you’re already behind. We do have some people that help a little, but there’s certainly nothing of any magnitude.