Robinson began drag racing in 1950 behind the wheel of a Buick-engined B/Gas 1940 Ford, a car he campaigned until 1961. His natural instinct was always toward lightness: he saw mass as the enemy of performance, once quipping, "Anything that falls to the ground when you let it go from your hand is way too heavy to be on my race car." When he acquired his first slingshot rail, he trimmed it from 1,256 to 1,120 pounds over three months and cut its best elapsed time from 9.50 to 9.13 seconds.
He first attracted national attention at the 1961 NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park, where he drove a small-block Dragmaster-chassied gas dragster to the Top Eliminator title, setting low elapsed time of the meet with an 8.68-second pass. The run also gave rise to his famous nickname: rivals who expected little from the slight, quiet Georgian discovered he had simply been hiding what the car could do.
Robinson moved up to Top Fuel in 1964. His engineering philosophy remained unchanged: he favored lightweight engines over raw displacement, and he was one of the last competitors to campaign the Ford 427 cubic-inch "Cammer" engine, long after most rivals had switched to Chrysler Hemi power.
His results across the following years were consistently near the front of the field despite his refusal to follow the crowd. At the 1965 Springnationals at Bristol Motor Speedway, he reached the Top Fuel final. In 1966 he recorded his first national Top Fuel win at the World Finals at Tulsa Raceway Park in Oklahoma, defeating Dave Beebe in the final with a 7.17-second pass after earlier eliminating Connie Kalitta and Wayne Burt. At the 1967 Springnationals at Bristol he again reached the final, eliminating Tom Hoover and Leroy Goldstein before losing to Don Prudhomme. During that season he also tied McEwen's national elapsed-time record with a 6.92-second pass.
At the 1968 AHRA Winter Nationals in Scottsdale, Robinson again faced Prudhomme in the final and again lost — a rivalry that underscored just how fast Robinson ran against the deepest fields the sport could assemble, which routinely included Karamesines, Kalitta, McEwen, and Garlits. At the 1970 Summernationals at York U.S. 30 Dragway in Pennsylvania, Robinson won the Top Fuel title, and later that year claimed the 1970 AHRA World Championship at Bristol, beating Jimmy King in the final. He was the only front-running driver still campaigning the Ford Cammer engine at that stage of his career.
Following his 1970 championship season, Robinson retired from driving to concentrate on engineering work — building lightweight supercharger casings, differential housings, and similar components for other teams. He hired Bud Dabler to drive his new ground-effect-equipped dragster, though the arrangement was short-lived.
In January 1971 Robinson returned to competition, entering an ANRA Grand American Series event at Lions Drag Strip where he posted the quickest pass of his career: a 6.50-second run in the new car. Three weeks later he elected to enter the NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, qualifying with a 6.77 — low elapsed time of the day.
On a subsequent qualifying pass the chassis twisted, the front tires separated from their rims, and the car struck the guardrail. Robinson died at a Pomona hospital on February 6, 1971. He was 37 years old.
At the time of his death Robinson was widely regarded as one of drag racing's best-liked competitors. Don Garlits, himself a relentless innovator, paid him perhaps the most meaningful tribute available in the sport: "Pete was always on the edge of the envelope." Robinson was posthumously ranked 22nd on the NHRA's list of its Top 50 Greatest Drivers of the twentieth century — recognition of a career that punched well above its commercial resources. His engineering contributions, particularly around chassis weight reduction and the application of lightweight engine configurations in a field dominated by heavier alternatives, anticipated the direction the sport would eventually travel.