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| MARSHALL SUTTON AT HMS (PHOTO BY NICK AND SHERRI STEARNS) |
(NOTE: This feature appeared in the Hickory Daily Record in 2012.)
Sutton’s career is 44 years and still counting
By Tom Gillispie
A lot of crankcase oil has flowed
through his motors since Marshall Sutton started racing.
Sutton, 60, says his dad used to race
big-timers like Bobby Allison, Richard Petty Red Farmer and others when they
lived in Florida.
Sutton took up racing when he was 16.
“My first car was a '49 Chrysler,”
said Sutton, who has raced at Hickory Motor Speedway since 1986. “It was like
Street Stock, but they called it the Cyclone division. The first night out I
finished second; the second night out, I crashed.”
Sutton’s dad told him to find a ’57
Chevy, and he says he drove it to the 1970 Florida state title in the Cyclone
division.
“I ran it for five years. It got so
beat up they told me not to bring it back,” Sutton said with a laugh.
He ran a few Limited Late Model races
in Florida, although it was called something else. Sutton doesn’t remember
what.
Sutton’s dad was a truck driver,
moving produce, and he drove through the Burnsville area north of Asheville,
liked it and decided to stay.
Sutton says that they looked liked
something out of the old TV show Sanford and Son as they drove up from Florida
in various trailers.
“He bought 28 acres with an old
farmhouse, and I still live in one of the houses. It must be over 200 years old
by now,” Sutton said.
After the family moved to Burnsville,
Sutton first tried Asheville Speedway. In the last race of the season, he
bought a NASCAR license, started 26th with no practice and “won the darned thing.”
He says he was protested, but track
officials saw a legal car. The protestor had to pay up.
Sutton says he lucked out in meeting
Bob Pressley, who steered him to Harris Speedway, a dirt track near Greer, S.C.
He says he won four of six races that
year, then ran Greenville-Pickens Speedway the next year in a ’57 Chevy. He
recalls winning 26 of 28 Super Stock starts at Greenville-Pickens one year.
He started at Hickory in ’86.
“I won the championship in Super
Stock at Hickory and Tri-County (Motor Speedway) in '95 and '96,” he said, “but
the division died out eight to 10 years ago. Now there’s Street Stock; that’s
about all I can afford.”
Naturally, Sutton has had ups and
downs in 44 years of racing.
“I had surgery year before last, and
a foot and a half of my colon was removed,” Sutton said. “I went to the (HMS)
banquet two weeks after. I’d lost to 160 pounds (from 5-9, 180), and I was
pretty puny. I looked like dead man walking.”
His newest problem isn’t his health.
Sutton was third in the division before last week’s race. He blew a motor on
the white-flag lap and still had enough momentum to finish third. He was moved
to second when Mike Newton was dropped from that spot.
He asked around, but $4,500 for a new
engine was out of the question. So now he doesn’t have a motor for Hickory.
He says that division leader and
friend Kevin Eby has offered him a motor, but he’s leery to use it.
“I’d hate to borrow it and tear up
the engine,” Sutton said. “I’d just be in further debt.”
Eby, Sutton’s close friend, has told
him not to worry about that, but Sutton worries anyway.
“I’ve got my old motor from last year
he could use,” Eby said. “We’re pretty tight. We pit together and help each
other. I told him he could use it if he wanted to; we only have six or seven
races left. But he said that if something happens to it, if it blows up, he
doesn’t have the money to replace it. I told him I’d give him the
motor.”
Eby, 42, and Sutton, 18 years older,
have changed. Both men admit they were rivals when they started racing each
other in the 1990s.
“When we started,” Eby said, “we were
not the best of friends. We’d talk around the track, but for four or five years
we were rival enemies. I’d do anything in my power to beat him on the track.
I’d knock out way if I needed to. At times we said words to each other.
“But one year it all changed, and we
became best friends. We go eat supper together, go fishing together. He’s
helped me when we’re racing, and I’ve helped him. We do things with our
families together, cookouts and other things.”
Sutton says he might go to Hickory
Saturday night to give his friends help and encouragement.
But he can still race. He has a big
motor that he can’t run at Hickory, and he said he’d put it in his Camaro and
race Friday at Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway.
He says he enjoys racing Street
Stocks. Still…
“I miss running Late Models or
Limiteds,” he said, “but you’ve got to run where you’re comfortable and you
know you can afford it. The top divisions are tough. They (the drivers) have
got money they don't care about.”
Sutton says Morgan Shepherd, the
70-year-old former Winston Cup driver, reminds Sutton of Sutton. Long after he
started, he’s still racing what he can afford.
And, in his own
way, he’s winning.
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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com BLUESKY: PROFILE
More entries from TARJ
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(the book of great NASCAR stories)
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Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
