Faces In The Crowd: Glen Reen On The Ridge Runner Ralph Ridgeway

Faces In The Crowd is a semi-regular feature from RaceDayCT’s Denise DuPont visiting with fans in the grandstands at local short tracks.

When it comes to covering short track racing in New England, there are always plenty of stories to tell from the track or in the pits. But there is a whole other part of the racing community – the race fans – that have stories to tell. RaceDayCT’s Denise DuPont offers Faces In The Crowd as a way to tell those stories.

Glen Reen from Wilbraham, Mass. has been a longtime competitor in the Modified ranks. Reen currently competes part-time in the ARCA Menards Series, driving the No. 07 for KLAS Motorsports. Over the last 20 years a key figure in Reen’s racing ventures has been Ralph Ridgeway. Ridgeway competed years ago against Reen’s parents and as the next generation of racers hit the track, Ridgeway took Glen under his wing. Ridgeway has been mentoring Reen on the mechanical and engineering aspects of a race car with every spare moment they have.  

Can you go into more details on Ralph and his involvement with your racing career?

“He worked and still works on Modified cars at Stafford, on ARCA cars and also helping tweak cars or their components. He is the one that, helped me with an ARCA motor. It’s just pretty cool that he’s 86, and it can take him two weeks to put one motor together.

“I bought a race car from Teddy Marsh. Then I bought a new motor when we took it apart, we found out we had a bad block, a cracked block. So, we had to buy another block. We brought it to Donnie Wood from RAD Auto Machine and we had him do the machine work to it.

“Then we literally assembled the motor in a week and went to Lime Rock. We were running sixth in the race before an axle broke. And then we went to Watkins Glen a couple of weeks later and finished fourth against the big boys. So that to me is awesome.

“Everyone else racing there had these big motors that make way more power than we had. And, you know it’s great that Ralph at 86 is still building motors that can compete with the big boys, in a garage in Belchertown. You know it’s amazing.”

Ralph always has an ear tuned in to detect if something is wrong to a car in the pits or on the track. Have you ever noticed that?

“He’s got a God given talent that he can feel. It’s insane, but he still one ups me every time as far as, that stuff. But again, it’s beyond a blessing when you think about it, like this year at Daytona for the ARCA testing. I have built the engines with Ralph. Now I’ve built so many with him, that I feel I have become mechanic wise. When we left pit road, the engine shut off. And it had separated around 7,000 RPM.

“I get the thing fired back up and I’m like, all right, I got to repeat whatever this did so I can tell these guys what’s happening. So, I brought it all the way back up and I’m watching the tach the whole time. And it shut off at 7137 RPM.

“But then I left it in gear, and it was still going. The dash never lost power and RPM’s were still reading. So, I know it’s a crank sensor because the dash still has power. If it’s reading RPM, it means the cam sensor is still reading. So, it has to be a crank trigger sensor. So, we pull in, I tell the guys that it needs crank trigger sensor.

“Mike Dayton [KLAS crew chief] said, ‘Well, how do you know that?’ I said, ‘Well, the dash never lost power. So, the ECU [Engine Control Unit] is still working and it’s still reading RPM when it’s shut off and it’s still in gear. So, it’s still rolling and I can still see RPM on the dash.’

“And the guys just start laughing. And said, ‘God, I wish everyone was as smart as you.’ Wow.  And you know, it’s just a compliment because [Daytona said] ‘A lot of these drivers are just drivers. They don’t know how their car works. They don’t know what, you know. We had this happen with another guy and we wasted three hours of practice trying to figure out what it was.’ So, it took me, all of two or three minutes to figure out exactly what the issue was. And then I tell the crew and they were able to change the sensor in about three or four minutes.

“And off we went and we had the whole rest of the day for practice. So those things may seem little, but they’re huge because now we didn’t lose three and a half or four hours of practice.”

If you were to approach Ralph and ask him to do a brain dump or share what is key to him, what would be the things you would be looking for? 

“Oh, my God. Anything will be good. Things from him are just amazing. For example, when I was very new at this stuff, I ripped a bolt and I couldn’t get it out the easy. Nothing would work. There was still a bunch of meat left on it (bolt). I reached out to Ralph saying that I don’t know what to do.

“So, he’s like, well, let me take a ride down. He comes down to the shop and he looks at it. He didn’t look at it for more than 10 seconds. He says, ‘Why don’t you just take a die grinder and cut a slot in it and use a flathead?’ And I just looked at him and I was like, ‘How the hell did I not think about that?’ Like, he just has the most unbelievable outside the box thinking. Yes, he is unbelievable. His problem solving or his capability to come up with alternative solutions that are still within the box that are still legal. It’s amazing. He has a gift.”

Have you ever run into a condition where it was kind of on the line of being legal or not legal?

“No. We don’t do anything illegal. We sometimes might be right on the edge, but we are legal. But if it comes to it, what’s flat out cheating, we’re not doing it. And that’s why I used to get so much enjoyment out of when we would beat those guys, whoever it may be.

“You know, I’m not singling out anyone, but I know people are cheating out there. And I’m not going to name names, but I know that we beat them with a lot less. So, it’s a much better feeling not cheating. And Ralph’s instilled that in me. Ralph also does not want to do anything that could possibly risk a driver’s safety.”

If here was anything in the world you could ask Ralph, what would it be?

 “Seriously. The problem is I’ve already asked a bunch of them to him. I’m trying to think, what would I ask Ralph I guess if he was to go back in time, knowing what he knows now, would he change anything? And what would it be?

“I just wish I had, like I knew of him for years, right, but I didn’t know him until 2006. So, my only regret is I wish I had met him sooner because I would have had more time with him. But we have had a blast in our time together. I don’t want to say it was short, but it may not be as long as I wished it was. We had some hell of times, let me tell you. Traveling the country and doing all kinds of stuff.”

If you were to look back over the time working with Ralph, what would be your most memorable experience either on the track or working with him on a car? 

“I would probably be our win together was probably the coolest one. That was when we won the [Whelen Modified Tour] race [at Thompson Speedway on October 16, 2011]. But the coolest thing obviously is building motors with him in the shop. And just doing all the stuff together.

“Ralph used to come into the shop and wake me up. I’m a night owl. He’s a morning person. I would work all night at the shop and he’d roll in the next morning at seven o’clock. Seven thirty banging on my floor. I used to live above my shop, so he’d be banging on the ceiling saying: ‘Time to go to work.’ He doesn’t know. I didn’t go to bed till 5 a.m. or 4 a.m.” But those are great memories that I am really grateful to have.”

Will Ralph Ridgeway be going to Daytona Speedway for the ARCA Menard Series race on Feb. 14?

“You know, back about 20 years ago Ralph’s back bothered him, but it wasn’t as bad as it is now. As you grow older, the Scoliosis condition still exists and can impact you more. Will he be going to Daytona? No. His biggest thing is, first of all, he hates flying, so he does not want to fly to Daytona for the ARCA race. I keep telling him: ‘If it’s two and a half hours, we’ll get you on a plane, we’ll get you off the plane”, and then, he can be honored for all the hard work he has done on the car.”

What are your plans then this year (2026) for racing? 

“When you get the funding, you know, going to a race. It’s tough right now. Yes, you’re finally getting close to your dream but there is no money.”