Mountain Motor Pro Stock (MMPS) is taking wings within NHRA’s community, with more drivers and teams signing up for the class and with acknowledged door-slammer professionals getting involved. While NHRA announced six events for this category in 2023, it gave only five concise dates while delineating the overall scheduling for all NHRA classes.
At this time, fans can count on watching MMPS compete at Chicago this May, traveling to Epping, NH, racing at Bandimere outside Denver, visiting the Topeka, KS heartland, and being part of Dallas’ Stampede of Speed during the Camping World Drag Racing Series Countdown to the Championship. The sixth and final race has not yet been named.
One of the most prolific Pro Stock teams on the National tour is already mixing up their plans to succeed in the MMPS class. Elite Motorsports initially, once NHRA announced scheduling, planned to compete with two cars for team owner Richard Freeman and five-time, reigning Pro Stock champion Erica Enders. That plan has changed.
While Elite fully intends to have a pair of cars on the grid when Mountain Motor Pro Stock begins its 2023 campaign at Route 66 Raceway outside Chicago in mid-May, Freeman had decided to step back from driving one of this team’s pair of Chevrolet Camaro entries, acquired through J.R. Carr’s program late in 2022, and to cede that drive to an acknowledged master of the category, Pete Berner.
Berner’s name has been synonymous with this class in the latter stages of the 20th century and into the 21st. He’s raced to multiple IHRA world MMPS championships – and walked away from one of the most intense crashes MMPS has seen. “We already know the chemistry is there with Pete from our shared experience in the IHRA,” Freeman explained. “He’s a skilled driver who knows his way around these cars and I’m confident he can take anything that’s thrown at him out on the track.
“Pete is the kind of guy people naturally want to root for out here and his engineering mind will be an asset to our team in more ways than one. We want to grow this program in the NHRA and that means we need to have the best drivers behind the wheel,” Freeman confirmed. The fact that Berner and Frank Gugliotta, who is managing Elite’s MMPS program, have a long history of working together in this class sealed the deal.
“Frankie and I are pretty good buddies. He’s a fierce competitor,” said Berner, who lives in Crete, IL, a southern suburb of Chicago. “He’s great fun to race with and he’s helped me win one of my world championships by defeating one of the guys who was in the running against me. We became good buddies with all of the Freemans. Out of the blue, Richard called me and asked if I would be interested in working with him and Frankie. After talking to my wife and a few of my old racing friends, we decided it was a great opportunity.
“This is a great team that Richard’s put together with J.R. Carr and it’s an excellent program. I’m looking forward to being Erica’s teammate. We’ve tested together before and I was there when she got her Pro Stock license, so we go back a ways, but I’ve never had the opportunity to race with her, so that’s very exciting as well. She’s one of the best out there, if not The best.”
While Berner has made plenty of laps in different MMPS cars, he still has to jump through some hoops and rid himself of some rust before the class gets underway at Joliet. “ just need to dust the cobwebs off and when we feel comfortable, we will start,” Berner noted. “If we need to wait for Epping we will. There’s been no pressure, but I think I’m ready. I held the world record in that class up until a year or so ago. And those are the guys that surpassed it – so I know I’m with the right team!”
KOOL!