How Dennis Gregg’s Fandom Led to World of Outlaws with Bill Balog
Photo by Tyler Carr
NEW EGYPT, N.J.—Bill Balog grew worried when his part-time crew member Dennis Gregg called to ask how much he could pay him heading into 2022.
Balog didn’t answer with a weekly rate or salary. His reply didn’t have a number at all. Instead, he offered a suggestion. He knew where Gregg’s mind had wandered.
“I said, ‘Do not quit your job right now,’” Balog recalled. “And he said, ‘I already did.’”
That was Gregg’s latest but largest sign of dedication to Balog’s team at the time. Gregg calls Wisconsin home and grew an interest in the sport at a young age when a local racer, Robbie Punzel, drove for his uncle during the late 1990s. He hung around the car and helped where he could until the team shuttered.
Gregg’s interest in the sport dimmed for a few years before reigniting around 2010 and luring him to several Interstate Racing Association (IRA) events near home. If you were going to IRA races in the 2010s, you watched Alaskan transplant Bill Balog win a lot of races and championships. Gregg’s fandom of the “North Pole Nightmare” grew. Eventually, he started chatting with Balog, and one thing led to another.
“It was just something about Bill’s driving style. He was a guy I kind of watched,” Gregg said. “Little by little I got the nerve up and started going down and hanging out with the guys he was working with. Little by little, I eased my way in until he decided to do the All Star (Circuit of Champions) tour. I’d been hanging around so much he asked if I wanted to go on the road with him, and I agreed to do it.”
Over the years, Gregg became Balog’s righthand man. Balog has plenty on his plate, being the owner, driver, and crew chief of the car, but Gregg’s work ethic lightens the load. He leaves engine maintenance to Balog but handles most of the remaining upkeep. Getting a CDL also allowed Gregg to transport the car from track to track.
“The car always beats me to the racetrack,” Balog said. “He’s afraid something is going to break down, so he leaves early and gets it there for me. He would carry it there if he had to. I’m not kidding. He would get it there somehow. That’s a really good thing to have. He would literally do anything.”
After the All Star experience got their feet wet with a traveling series, Balog came to Gregg with the idea of potentially hitting the road with The Greatest Show on Dirt in 2024. With the approval of a supportive wife, Gregg was on board.
“My first thought was, ‘I hope we can actually pull it off,’” Gregg said. “I knew it was always a dream of his, and I thought that would be kind of cool for me to come from literally knowing very little about these things to actually trying to run with the top dogs.”
They’ve done more than run with the top dogs. They’ve become one of them. Balog put together a consistent rookie year in 2024, but they’ve upped it to another level in 2025. After no wins last year, it took them only seven races of the sophomore season to find Victory Lane at Alabama’s Talladega Short Track.
“The win at Talladega for me was my first Outlaw win,” Gregg said. “It’s kind of funny. I was sitting in the stands over there. I still remember that I really didn’t even get nervous. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if I was in shock or whatever. But after he had finally won, I’m like, ‘Oh my god. I’m on an Outlaw winning team. We beat the best of the best.’ So, after the races, when we were all celebrating, I took the right rear tire and cut it off and saved that. I got him to sign it. My wife made a little plaque.”
Balog wasn’t done there. He’s shown consistent speed all year, which included a near dream week at Huset’s Speedway. The No. 17B racked up nearly $100,000 over four nights at the Huset’s High Bank Nationals, highlighted by their second victory of the campaign. A third win came last month at California’s Perris Auto Speedway. This past weekend, Balog nearly added a crown jewel to his résumé, leading laps at Williams Grove Speedway’s J&S Classics National Open before a podium result.
Expectations have evolved as the results continue to improve. They’ve proven they can hold their own against the best.
“The first year was all about gaining experience and prove to everybody we belonged out here,” Gregg said. “We knew we kind of believed we could be out here, but you get out here and it’s a little different. You realize how consistent you have to be week in and week out. This year, I don’t know what expectations were from Bill’s perspective, but I thought with the way we ran the first year, I believed we should be finishing top 10 consistently. My expectations are a top 10 almost every single night because I know Bill is more than capable as a driver, and now that we’ve been to these tracks a few times, we have a better understanding of everything.”
Only 10 races remain in 2025. Along with the three wins, Balog and company have collected a solid 15 top fives and 33 top 10s. Balog hired Kevin Ingle after the Knoxville Nationals to help the crew and take a little weight off Gregg’s shoulders. They’re seventh in points, within striking distance of Donny Schatz for sixth, and Gregg has no regrets about quitting that “normal” job a few years back even if Balog thought it was a bad choice at the time.
“Now my expectations for the rest of the year are pretty much just to keep running the way we’re running and see if we can catch Donny Schatz in the driver’s points,” Gregg said. That’s my goal now, but I don’t want to turn this into a points racing thing because I think that can kind of distract from what we’re doing. We just kind of do what we do every day, and hopefully things fall our way.”
Gregg, Balog, and the B2 Motorsports team continue their sophomore season with the World of Outlaws this Friday, Oct. 10, at New Jersey’s New Egypt Speedway and Saturday, Oct. 11, at Abbottstown, PA’s Lincoln Speedway. For tickets, CLICK HERE.
If you can’t make it to the track, catch every lap live on DIRTVision.
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