Racer Profile: Tony Glover

January 31, 2008

By Allen Madding

Allen Madding

Born April 17, 1957 in Kingsport, Tennessee, Tony Glover began working in NASCAR in 1971. Glover joined Morgan-McClure Racing in late 1983. Many outsiders question Glover’s judgment joining the under funded team. Glover would later recall “Looking back on it now, I don’t see how we had the desire and the determination to keep going back because we kept getting knocked down, knocked down, knocked down. Larry wasn’t a quitter and all the guys on the team weren’t quitters. We all wanted to put our mark somewhere.’’

Thru 1983, the team posted only one top-ten finish with Mark Martin Driving. In 1984, Glover prepared cars for Tommy Ellis, Lennie Pond, and Joe Ruttman. In 1985, the team gained some limited sponsor dollars from Folgers Coffee allowing them to enter 16 events with Ruttman behind the wheel recording one top-five and four top-ten finishes. In 1986, the team fielded the car in 18 events with Lake Speed driving at Charlotte and Rick Wilson driving in the other 17 events. Kodak Films came on board as the team’s sponsor beginning with the Michigan race and would become the team’s long-term partner. For the year, the team recorded four top-tens. In 1987, the team entered Wilson in 19 events and fielded a second car, the No. 14 Copenhagen car with A. J. Foyt for the Daytona 500. Foyt fell out of the Grand American Race on the tenth lap. Wilson would record one top-ten for the season.

The team entered Wilson in 28 events in 1988. Wilson’s driving and Glover’s work would yield one pole, two top-fives, and five top-tens. In 1989, the pairing would yield two top-fives and seven top-tens in 29 starts. Wilson and Morgan-McClure parted ways at the end of the season. The team began the 1990 season with driver Phil Parsons with less than desirable results. Glover was paired with driver Ernie Irvan beginning with the fourth race of the season at Atlanta. Immediately the pairing enjoyed a third-place finish. Two events later, Irvan scored his first career win at Bristol in 1990 driving the Morgan-McClure No. 4 crewed by Tony Glover. The win was the first for Irvan and the first for Morgan-McClure. The pair would end the season with three poles, one win, six top-fives, and 13 top-tens finishing ninth in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series points.

In 1991, Irvan won the Daytona 500 driving the Morgan-McClure Kodak Film Chevrolet prepared by Tony Glover. The team then sat on the pole at Talladega and scored a second win at the road course at Watkins Glen, New York. Irvan ended the year with one pole, two wins, 11 top-fives, and 19 top-tens. In 1992, Glover led Irvan to another three poles, three wins, nine top-fives, and 11 top-tens.

After the Bristol race in 1993, Irvan departed the Morgan-McClure team to accept an offer from Robert Yates Racing to drive the No. 28 Havoline Ford. Together in 1993, Glover and Irvan had recorded two poles, one win, seven top-fives and eight top-tens. Glover worked with Joe Nemechek, Jimmy Hensley, and Jeff Purvis in the final events of 1993. Sterling Marlin was signed to drive for the team for 1994.

In 1994, Sterling Marlin scored his first career NASCAR Winston Cup Series win with Tony Glover and the No. 4 Kodak Films crew in the team’s first outing together at the Daytona 500. The team went on to post one pole, one win, five top-fives and 11 top-tens for the season. In 1995, Marlin and Glover recorded another pole, three wins, nine top-fives, and 22 top-tens to finish an impressive third in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship. The pairing added two more wins, five top-fives, and ten top-tens in 1996.

At the end of 1996, Glover left Morgan-McClure to accept a position at SABCO racing as the crew chief for the No. 42 team and Kyle Petty. In 1997, SABCO racing promoted Glover to team manager over all its teams. In 2000, Glover was selected as crew chief for Kenny Irwin, driver of the No. 42 SABCO Bellsouth Chevy. Glover balanced his crew chief duties on the No. 42 team with managing the three teams at SABCO. Irwin was tragically killed during on July 7, 2000, and Glover returned to solely focusing on his position as team manager at SABCO. At the end of 2000, Chip Ganassi purchased SABCO and retained Glover in his team manager position and added Andy Graves to co-manage.

In October 2004, Glover returned to serving as a crew chief for Sterling Marlin "Our team is about performance and the No. 40 team hasn't regained its championship-caliber form of just two years ago," car owner Chip Ganassi said. "Sometimes in any sport, you need to change things up in order to re-energize the team and this is one of those times."

Glover returned to his team management duties for the 2005 season and continues to serve in the role for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.

Career Acomplishments:

1992 - Western Auto Mechanic-of-the-Year award

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You can contact Allen Madding at .. Insider Racing News

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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