Some legends are just too good to forget.

That’s why the Good Ol’ Charlie Brown is held in reverence among drag racing fans throughout the Carolinas.

Mike Boyles, a multi-time Super Stock world champion from King, N.C., keeps on keeping on with his stick-shifted, 1957 Chevy Wagon bearing the likeness of the Charles Schultz iconic cartoon character.

The lumbering and high-winding wagon still screams through the gearbox as it has done for the last 41 years. The old standard family wagon is powered by a 283-cubic inch Chevy engine equipped with a single four-barrel carburetor, attached to a manual, four-speed transmission.

Some legends are just too good to forget.

That’s why the Good Ol’ Charlie Brown is held in reverence among drag racing fans throughout the Carolinas.

Mike Boyles, a multi-time Super Stock world champion from King, N.C., keeps on keeping on with his stick-shifted, 1957 Chevy Wagon bearing the likeness of the Charles Schultz iconic cartoon character.

The lumbering and high-winding wagon still screams through the gearbox as it has done for the last 41 years. The old standard family wagon is powered by a 283-cubic inch Chevy engine equipped with a single four-barrel carburetor, attached to a manual, four-speed transmission.

While that might not sound like the standard Super Stock combination,  Boyles has eight world championships and 22 national event victories to his credit. He’s also scored over 50 IHRA divisional event wins.

Every great story has a humble beginning and for Boyles, his story is a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

“After I got out of the army, I worked at East Bend Dragway on the pit gate,” said Boyles. East Bend Dragway is an eighth-mile track located east of the town of East Bend, NC. “Lyle Epperson was driving the Chevy (wagon) there.”

Boyles often helped Epperson work on the car during the week and towed the car to the track on weekends.

Epperson drove the Chevy wagon from 1968 until 1970, when he broke the rear end on the car. Instead of fixing it, Epperson parked the wagon and built a new Camaro.

Boyles had developed a desire to race and that’s when he approached Epperson about the possibility of driving the classic wagon.

“I asked Lyle if the wagon still ran,” Boyles said. “He told me that the motor was good but that the rear didn't work. So we got a 12-bolt rear and put it in and I started to drive the car.”

Together they became a formidable one-two punch.

“I'd go to one track on Friday night and he'd run at a different track on Saturday,” Boyles said.

Boyles won his first world championship in 1978 when he beat out Roy Johnson, a former IHRA Super Stock driver who now builds race engines for his son, Pro Stock driver Allen Johnson.

“We got to the last race in Atlanta [then an IHRA sanctioned track] and Roy Johnson was leading in the points,” he explained. “I won the last race in Atlanta and won the championship by five points.”

In addition to his championships, Boyles was also named the Super Stock Driver of the Year in the 1983 Car Craft Magazine All Star Team and captured the Valvoline Sportsman Cup and the Stroh's Cup awards.

Boyles has his memories but the awards he earned as a result were stolen about five years ago.

“The thief got some of my rings and other awards,” he said. “But they didn't get it all. I've still got two of my IHRA rings and four of my gold belt buckles.”

Those awards were all from running IHRA races. Boyles never pursued the NHRA tour because of the tremendous demands, both in time and financially.

“I would love to run NHRA but you have to do that full time if you want to be competitive,” he said, mentioning racers such as Anthony Bertozzi, Peter Biondo, Dan Fletcher and others who have made sportsman racing their full-time jobs.

“That's their job and they do an excellent job at it. I just felt like I had too many other priorities. I know I never drove as good as Bertozzi but I had my good days.”

“I do it just because I love it and I enjoy the competition,” he said, adding that he still enjoys racing even though he has not won a championship in 16 years. “I enjoy going to the races because I get to see many people that I know.”

Save for a few modern technical conveniences, the car looks today exactly as it did in 1970.

Well there was that risqué initial branding.

“When Lyle built the car, it was brown. It was so brown that it needed something to break it up,” Boyles said. “We sent the car to another racer who owned a sign shop and told him to do something with it but we didn't know what he was going to do.”

“When the car came back from the shop, it was still big and was still brown but it now had a large picture of a pregnant Lucy and Charlie Brown (from the Peanuts comic strip) and a caption that read “Damn you, Charlie Brown.

“We raced it that way until 1975 when IHRA told us we'd have to change it if we wanted to keep racing,” added Boyles. “I wanted to keep the same theme but keep it more family-oriented, so we went with “Good Ol' Charlie Brown'.”

These days Boyles’ schedule is limited to a few IHRA appearances close to home. He races with a group who race cars similar to the old school Modified cars. The Gear Jammers group competes with only manual transmissions.

The ride has been a fun one with the big brown wagon.

“I've had some very good sponsors over the years and a lot of people who have helped me,” he said. “I couldn't have done it at all without the people who helped me.”

That and the Good Ol’ Charlie Brown.

Jim Samuels contributed to this report.

Advertisement