Catchfence

ThorSport Racing team manager David Pepper has been around the Camping World Truck Series virtually since its 1995 inception, and in motorsports longer than that.

As he took a break Friday after practice for Saturday’s Truck Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Pepper said he’s never seen a more intense competitor than the guy that drives ThorSport’s No. 13 Chevrolet, Johnny Sauter.

“I get fired-up, and I get fired-up pretty easy,” Sauter said, laughing at the recollection of some of those mid-race exchanges. “I’ve been that way my whole life, and some people say it helps you, and some say it hurts you — but you can’t change what you are.

“But a guy like Pepper — he’s the complete antithesis of me. We’re from one end of the scale to the other, and maybe because of that it just works for us.”

Early this season, team owner Duke Thorson made a logistical change with his teams and Pepper — who’s also established pretty solid credibility as a spotter — came down to the garage area rather than being Sauter’s “eyes on the roof” during practices and races.

It was a short-term experiment in the opening days of the season, and when Sauter had fallen to 14th in the standings, he’d had enough. He went to Thorson and asked for his spotter back.

The owner agreed to a short-term retrial, to see if Sauter working with Pepper up-top really made a difference. Sauter responded pretty quickly with a win at Kansas and they never looked back.

Since then, the team’s scored nine top-five finishes in 14 races and is currently third in the championship, albeit a hefty 318 points behind leader Todd Bodine.

No one’s argued with their success, lately.

“I think one of the biggest things with Pepper is he’s very calm, monotone [voice] and I’m quite the opposite, so I think it balances out pretty good,” Sauter said through a grin. “One of the biggest things is, when you’re in the heat of the battle, sometimes you say things to people that you don’t necessarily mean.

“And he accepts that and can handle that, and I think that’s one of the biggest reasons that [the relationship] works for us. He knows it’s just the heat of the battle.”

- NASCAR.com