A year ago, Joey Gladstone had a career-best campaign in NHRA’s Pro Stock Motorcycle class.

Gladstone, piloting a Suzuki for Reed Motorsports, won three races, and finished second in the points standings just 82 points behind world champion Matt Smith. His three wins in Sonoma, Topeka and Reading, Pa., were the first of his PSM career, which began in 2017.

Gladstone also had an impressive 31-12 elimination-round record in 2022.

Well, 2023 has been vastly different for Gladstone and his Suzuki.

Gladstone has only competed in four of the eight races this season – Gainesville, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., Chicago and Bristol, Tenn. – and none went very well. He has a 3-4 elimination-round record and qualified a best of fifth in Chicago.

“We had a lot of parts failures at the beginning of the year that set us back,” Gladstone said. “We could have kept racing because we had running stuff, but rather than going out there to race just to race, we just figured we might as well take some time off and recoup parts and rebuild inventory and try and come up with a better strategy and try again.

“We will still run Vance & Hines parts, we are just going to build and develop them ourselves just like White Alligator does, and Matt Smith and Steve Johnson.”

Gladstone keeps busy daily working at his team’s shop – KB Titan Racing – in Mooresville, N.C.

“We are trying to develop our own engine program and I have been working in the CNC shop at KB,” Gladstone said. 

Ironically, as the NHRA concludes its run at Heartland Motorsports Park, since the Pro Stock Motorcycles are not in competition this weekend, Gladstone will go down as the last bike winner there.