Call Charlie Peppers the ultimate underdog. But you couldn’t have convinced him
of that in the three decades that he competed in the IHRA Mountain Motor Pro
Stock division.
Nobody could make a low-buck Ford run like Peppers, the
tobacco-chewing man from Auburn, Ga.
Peppers never reached a single final round but he didn’t need
to. His threat to win and never-say-die attitude left more of a legacy than mere
wins and losses. In other words, paired against 15 other like-funded teams,
Peppers would have gotten his share.
Peppers began running Pro Stock in 1970 when it first started
and raced until just a few years ago. He started in the IHRA in
1972.
#20 ALL TIME MOUNTAIN MOTOR PRO STOCK DRIVER – CHARLIE
PEPPERS
Call Charlie Peppers the ultimate underdog. But you couldn’t have convinced him
of that in the three decades that he competed in the IHRA Mountain Motor Pro
Stock division.
Nobody could make a low-buck Ford run like Peppers, the
tobacco-chewing man from Auburn, Ga.
Peppers never reached a single final round but he didn’t need
to. His threat to win and never-say-die attitude left more of a legacy than mere
wins and losses. In other words, paired against 15 other like-funded teams,
Peppers would have gotten his share.
Peppers began running Pro Stock in 1970 when it first started
and raced until just a few years ago. He started in the IHRA in
1972.
“I just enjoyed doing it,” Peppers said. “If I didn’t I
probably would have quit a long time before I did. It just really got more
expensive and faster than I could handle.”
Initially Peppers didn’t care for the unlimited displacement
rule put forth in 1977, but he grew to like it.
“It was fine but I didn’t really like the idea at first
because I felt that it would make it so much more expensive,” Peppers said.
That’s why when the opportunity to squelch the engine sizes
came around in the early 1990s, Peppers interjected his opinion at a driver’s
meeting.
“We had a meeting in Darlington once and I tried to get them
to make the limit about 600 inches or so, but they didn’t. They made it about
814 inches and I knew from that point on that it would be tough for
me.”
But that didn’t stop Peppers from giving it his
all.
