I got a chance to chat with Joey Gase Motorsports driver Glen Reen after his fantastic finish at EchoPark this past weekend. I may have interrupted a chess game between him and his future father-in-law, but he was more than happy to talk about the race weekend in the No.
Before he hopped in the car for qualifying, Massachusetts native Glen Reen had never run a race or made any sort of attempt to run the high banks of EchoPark Automotive Speedway Atlanta. In fact, Glen had only ever made 6 previous starts in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, but never anywhere quite like Atlanta.
When he finally hit the track for the first time, he qualified 31st with a 32.884-second lap, just 0.897 seconds behind the pole-sitter, Sam Mayer. Going into the race for Glen and the JGR team, a finish in the high 20s would have been a win. Unfortunately for Glen, the attrition started before the drop of the green flag. Glen’s cool suit failed before he got a chance to climb into the car. Luckily, he was able to trade shirts with one of the 53 cars’ crew guys.
Glen was able to keep his No. 53 New Wave Bath Chevrolet relatively clean all night long. He did spin on lap 134, making minor contact with the outside wall. But his Joey Gase Motorsports crew made quick work of getting the car track-ready again and back out there.
Glen would manage to survive the carnage and chaos to score his best career finish, P 15 at the line. The best finish for any Joey Gase car since Daytona last summer, with Mason Maggio behind the wheel, and the best finish for the 53 car since the Daytona opener last season, with Joey himself behind the wheel.
With a race clock exceeding 3 hours, including red flags, Glen mentioned that the Focused Health 250 at EchoPark was the longest race he had ever competed in. When asked about the attrition and what it takes to power through something like that, Glen said, “The heat was brutal; every caution and red flag drained you mentally. On top of that, it ended up being the longest race I’d ever driven.”
Glen added, “I think it comes down to how badly you want it… When you’re running well, you just find another gear mentally. You don’t think about how uncomfortable you are – you stay focused on the opportunity in front of you.”
When I asked Glen about his 15th-place finish, “It was huge.” Then he gave me one of the most honest answers I’ve heard in years: “People can always say, ‘Well, other drivers wrecked,’ but my response is simple: They wrecked, and I didn’t. That’s part of racing.”
Image via Leonard Motorsports Marketing
