"I grew up in the very far northeast corner of Oklahoma in Picher," Dennis Glover said. "My dad's side of the family all raced big body Chevelle stock cars on dirt circle tracks." A longtime resident of Norman, Glover is an architect who oversees new campus construction projects for the University of Oklahoma.

"Uncles and one aunt on my mom's side had Chevy hot rods they'd take to the drag strip. Growing up we'd go watch them race at MoKan Dragway in Asbury, Mo., or Monett Speedway," he said. "Hot rods are in my blood."

Glover learned to drive on a home-made tractor that his grandfather had constructed. "He always had cars with nice wheels and loud pipes. His 1940 Ford pickup was baby blue and black and looked like it had just come off the show room floor in the late '70s," Glover said.

With help from his dad, Glover built and competed in his first race car, a '67 Ford Galaxie 500 while in high school.

"We did all the body work and gave it a custom paint job," Glover said. As with many motor heads, cars took a backseat for the young man when he went away to school, got married, started a career and began raising a family. But the Glover racing tradition didn't fade away.

"We started Junior Drag Racing when our son Cody was 8 years old," Glover said. That was a few years back. Cody Glover graduated from Norman North High School in 2007. He is currently employed as a welder/ fabricator for hot rod builder Liquid and Powdercoat Finishes in Kansas City, Mo.

"Cody got a half-scale, rear engine dragster for Christmas that year." Junior dragsters weigh 240 pounds and typically have a 5 hp Briggs and Stratton engine that burns 100 percent racing alcohol.

Glover's dragster was made by Phil McGee in El Dorado Springs, Mo. It has a one-piece fiberglass body, rack and pinion steering and snow mobile type clutch. "Everything on this car is American made, which is kind of cool," Glover said.

I asked him what the small video game-type box is that's mounted over the engine.

"That's a data logger. We monitor the head and exhaust gas temperatures and the revolutions per minute. You can tell if you're sending too much or too little fuel to the engine," Glover said. At the track, between races, they download the data to a laptop, graph motor performance and tune it accordingly.

"There's also a sensor for the rear tires which can tell us if they're breaking loose and spinning too fast." The suspension can be adjusted for slickness variations at different tracks. "The clutch can be tuned and gear ratios changed, just like in a big car," he said.

Pint-size Glover began his speed demon career doing straight line, eighth-mile races at Thunder Valley Raceway Park in Noble. "Frankly, my wife was not happy about it for the first season," Glover admitted. Mrs. Glover changed her tune after having an opportunity at an out of state race during the second season to actually pilot Cody's dragster herself.

"Safety is the number one priority," Glover said. "They have a 5-point seat belt, arm restraints so they won't come out during a roll-over, padded roll cage and multiple engine kill switches," he said. Drivers wear a helmet, gloves and full flame resistant suits.

"In 12 seasons of racing all over the country I've only seen four crashes and the worst injury was a kid's bruised knee," Glover said.

When Cody was 13, Glover began looking for a full-size vehicle they could work on together and build into a racer.