I’ve always been a GM guy, grew up with my Moms daily driver a 57 Chevy. Had them my whole life. But there was a time early in my racing career that I ran a Ford Mustang. My reasoning was there were tons of them and parts were plentiful. It was seemingly simple to make it fast and a nice street/strip ride looked easy to achieve. But, I could not make that 302 live. It kept breaking connecting rods and I couldn’t figure out why. Too much compression, too many RPM’s? I was baffled and quickly sinking into a money pit.

Early Days of the Mustang. circa 91 with a short lived Capri nose.

So, I asked questions from who I thought was the go-to guy for Ford products. Bob Glidden. We had a chance to talk after Q4 at Sanair on a lazy Saturday evening. And he told me 2 things. No 1, if I was building it with a GM mindset I needed to pay more attention to the connecting rods, stock rods at higher RPM’s were a bad idea. Go with the best rods I could afford. And No 2, keep an eye on the oil pump driveshaft. It was a weak point. The rods were spot on and after I changed them I never broke another one, until I did break the oil pump driveshaft leading to another broken rod. But that was my own fault. I should’ve changed it. Shortly after I sold the car rolling and started my Vega project.

To me, what can you say about Bob Glidden that hasn’t been said? He’s a legend in the truest sense of the word. To this day more than a decade since his last Ford start when you say Ford Motorsports, I think of Bob. 85 National event wins and 10 Championships speak for themselves. But it was more than that. He was a great guy. Always nice to the kids at the rope and as I related at the start, quick with advice if you needed it. It was a sad day in Pro Stock when Ford stepped away and all but ended Bob’s career. But regardless it was always cool in the recent years to see him at the track with a quick smile and hello.

Mr. Glidden, you will be missed, I hope wherever you are, you and Lee, Gordie, Grumpy, Scott, Joe and all the others are bench racing up a storm. Rest In Peace.