“Something needs to happen. It’s just so dangerous. It’s just nonsense, especially in our area," he said. "There are so many tracks around.”
He helped NHRA kick off its renewed push to promote NHRA Street Legal Drags presented by AAA. The sanctioning body has 140 NHRA-member tracks around the country that offer the program, subject of a video that will bring the 'Race the Strip, Not the Street' message to the public at NHRA national events. It features drivers Brandon Bernstein, Coughlin, Doug Herbert, Robert Hight, Bob Vandergriff, Hillary Will, and Del Worsham.
If he can save an aspiring young driver with the message and his example, perfect. But his primary task right now is to win races and bring his mentors another championship and himself his first trophy since winning the 2005 Sport Compact Series Modified title.
“All the blood, sweat and tears you put into (Pro Stock racing) kind of boils down to the nut behind the wheel that controls the whole game. You can have the best of everything but if the guy driving the car doesn’t have the mental strength to go out there and be competitive, you are going to lose,” Glidden said. “And that’s where we have an advantage. It is very plain to me that Justin is one of those guys involved in Pro Stock who has the mental edge to go out and win races. He’s not going to be good all the time, but he is pretty darn good most of the time.
“I am impressed with his ability and more so with his mental approach. He wants to be better. I’ve seen a lot of new guys come and go . . . you can’t tell them anything. I can see things from outside the car and Justin wants to improve as a driver," he said. "I tell him (how to improve) and he works on that and comes back and asks if he did it better. I like his attitude. What we are striving for here is for him to be a top Pro Stock driver. The good ones make their own luck. There are guys out there right now that don’t want to race Justin.”
Glidden added, "We are certainly capable if Richard and I do a good job with the engine and the car. We can win races. That’s the challenge."
That's the word that stirs Humphreys: challenge.
“We want to show what we can do this year,” Humphreys said. “Maybe drivers will look at us a lot differently when they get up (at the starting line) next to us. I’ve learned a lot from Bob – little stuff on driving style, like staging the car and the ways to do burnouts, stuff that makes things easier. It’s a whole combination of little things.
“Last year was such a huge learning curve. We struggled early in the year," he said, "but once Bob got there, he turned it around and started us moving in the right direction. It just took us a little while for all of us to get on the same page. I think we definitely showed our capabilities at the end of the year. The tools are there. We just have to make it all work.”
Justin Humphreys knew exactly how he wanted to stock his toolbox. And who can argue with him?