October 14, 1967. That was the date of the first race Marshall Sutton ever ran. He turned 16 on that Thursday, and headed out to the racetrack on Saturday night.
Street stocks cars were different at that time. Sutton said they raced street stocks before there were actual street stock race cars.
“You just put a bar in it, you couldn’t do anything else,” he said.
Fifty-two years later, Sutton is still running street stocks. The tracks are different, and the cars are much more advanced, but to him it’s still racing.
Sutton is in his 40th year racing at Hickory Motor Speedway, a NASCAR Whelen All-American Series sanctioned 0.363-mile asphalt oval track in Hickory, North Carolina. He started his career at Hialeah Speedway in Florida, and moved to North Carolina in 1975, racing around the state.
Hickory Motor Speedway | Facebook | Twitter
Often times, earlier in his career, Sutton would race at more than one track in a weekend, travelling wherever there were races between Hickory, Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina, and Tri-County Motor Speedway in North Carolina in the three day span.
“We’d haul the car down there, come home, get three or four hours sleep, load up, and hop in again,” he said.
What made getting to all the races more impressive was Sutton would do it with often little to no help from sponsors.
“It’s like I tell people, I work to race,” he said. “Whatever I work and make I take a couple hundred dollars out of it to go racing. If I didn’t work a whole lot that week I’ll take $50 out. Wherever I can afford to go I go.”
He still travels a bit to race. His home in Burnsville, North Carolina is about 78 miles from Hickory.
Sutton doesn’t even really know how many track championships he’s won in the last half decade – “15 or 16 I think,” he said. His first came in 1970 at Hialeah. That same year his dad was burned in a racing accident, so the title has always stuck out in Sutton’s head.
Most of his other titles have come at either Hickory or Tri-County.
Sutton’s dad raced “back in the day” with Bobby Allison and other racing legends.
“When he quit racing I just had it in my blood I guess,” Sutton said.
“I just enjoy it and I thought this is good exercise for you. You sweat and get all the bad stuff out and stuff, and if you got frustrated at work or something that helped take it out too.”
Outside of racing, Sutton worked at Buck Stove, which he said helped prepare him for the marathon weekends of racing. He would get his exercise at work, flipping 300 pound stoves.
“That keeps your body in pretty good shape,” he said. “Just make sure I drink plenty of fluids the night before.”
Street stocks has, for the most part, always been his car of choice. He briefly moved up to limited late models for about 10 years, but the cost got to be too much and he moved back down where he was comfortable. He started out driving a 1957 Chevrolet. Now, he drives a Monte Carlo, but he’s hoping to build a Camero to drive for a couple years before retiring.
Driving without sponsors for most of his career, Sutton and his crew have always preferred to build rather than buy. He knows that puts him at a disadvantage up against drivers and teams with much more money, but that doesn’t matter to him.
“If I can make it I don’t really want to buy anything. I’d rather make it,” he said. “I have a buddy, Skip, who helps me a lot, and Jeff Buyers, he’s my crew chief. We make stuff, A-frames, and we make ball joints and stuff like that. Anything we don’t have to buy is a lot better.”
The racing has changed, and Sutton’s career has changed. After retiring from Buck Stove, he said he realized he couldn’t make it on retirement and continue to race, so he went back to work at Altec Industries, where he’s been for 10 years.
His crew has also changed, though not much. After starting his race career before he was even married, now his son-in-law serves as his spotter and crew member, a role he’s served for 20 years.
Sutton’s team has even received a few sponsors over the last few years, something he said they’re very fortunate to have.
But even with all the changes over the last five decades, Sutton’s desires on the track haven’t changed.
“I’d like to win one more championship before I quit,” he said. “I’d like to go another couple years if possible. If not I might give it up earlier. It just depends how my health goes.”
Sutton is currently fourth in the Cosmo Motors Street Stocks points standings at Hickory Motor Speedway, two points out of second and 46 out of first, with two NASCAR races remaining.
Racing will return to Hickory on Saturday night for the Bobby Isaac Memorial — Paramount Auto Group Night featuring 150 laps of late model stocks, limited, and street stocks.
Hickory Motor Speedway points standings
