Race team, builders, innovators

When engine builders David Reher and Charles “Buddy” Morrison teamed up with Lee Shepherd, they became a lights-out combination in Pro Stock. From 1981-84, they won four-straight NHRA championships, back-to-back IHRA championships and reached the finals in 44 of 56 NHRA national events, winning 26. In 1983, Shepherd became the first and only driver to capture NHRA and IHRA Pro Stock titles in the same year and repeated in ‘84. They were on their way to a fifth NHRA title in 1985 when Shepherd was killed in a late-season testing accident. Morrison and Reher were named “Pro Stock Engine Builders of the Year” five straight seasons. Shepherd was named “Pro Stock Driver of the Year” four straight seasons and #12 on the NHRA’s list of Top 50 Drivers, 1951-2000. In 2010, Car Craft, which had labeled the trio “Persons of the Year” 30 years earlier, wrote, “When the definitive history of Pro Stock is written, the team of David Reher, Buddy Morrison and Lee Shepherd will be among the best of the best.”