Paul Marston
Paul has been involved in Sportsman class Drag Racing for over 35 years now. Like most he first attended Santa Pod for a RWYB with a Mk1 3 litre Capri aged 17 having just got his drivers license.
Attending events at Santa Pod, Blackbushe Airport, Long Marston Dragstrip and North Weald Airport as a spectator in the early 1980’s. Paul was competing himself by 1986 with the NDRC in the street class, bracket racing against the likes of Andy Robinson, Dave Mingay, Dave Pollen and the like, reaching two finals. Competing firstly in a selection of 3 litre Capri’s, then graduating to a manual 4-speed 500bhp small block 1967 Camaro. With this car Paul competed in the Wynns Custom Car Street Racer series at tracks like RAF Manston which was an 1/8 mile heads up event against the likes of Alan Packman in his AC Cobra.
Business commitments kept Paul away for the latter half of the 1980’s and early 90’s, returning with yet another 1967 smallblock Camaro for the Custom Car Street Eliminator series at Santa Pod Raceway in 1996. Competing for two years against the likes of Tim Muggeridge, Ray White and Billy Macdermid.
1998 saw Paul purchase Grumpy’s Dodge from Paul Watson and compete in then what was the toughest class in UK Drag Racing Super Gas, with entries from Terry Gibbs, Ray White, Jon Webster, Tim Adams, Zane Llewellyn, Paula Marshall, Paul Letchford, Kev Moore and “The Professor” Al O’Conner. It took a whole year to learn the skills necessary to become competitive, not winning a single round in 98, but once learnt, the first event where Paul won a round he went on to win the National Finals at Santa Pod Raceway in 1999.
1999 saw Paul sponsored by Chrysler UK attend the Goodwood Festival of Speed and compete at the legendary Brighton Speed Trials. Although due to license issues Paul had to hand driving duties over to Dave Gibbons of Rough Diamond Racing, which was the start of their longstanding friendship. Along with some track announcing at Santa Pod Raceway, supplying colour commentary alongside John Price and Graham Beckwith. Paul continued to compete in Super Gas with Grumpy’s Dodge in the UK National Event series.
2000 saw Paul form Paul Marston Racing and form a stronger relationship with Chrysler UK, embarking on a very ambitious secret project which culminated in the unveiling of the PT Bruiser at the Autosport show at the NEC in Birmingham, England Jan 2001. The PT Cruiser was only released by Chrysler 3 months earlier so such an outrageous racecar produced quite a stir which was exactly the result that Chrysler Uk were looking for. Appearing on the front cover of both Street Machine and Custom Car in the same month, a feat never repeated. The PT Bruiser competed in the UK National Drag Racing Championship.
2001 season saw the Bruiser achieve success at the Brighton Speed Trial, this time with Paul at the wheel, winning the FTD Trophy, class 8 trophy and the Les Edmunds fastest V8 trophy.
Paul then founded the Paul Marston’s Drag Race Driving School in 2002, with some great help and support from Santa Pod Raceway where the school is based. The Drag Race School was and still is the only drag race school in Europe. This was Paul way of giving something back to the sport of Drag Racing and with the help of the crew at Paul Marston Racing the school has been helping new drivers ever since.
Paul Marston Racing competed again in 2002 with the Chrysler UK backed PT Bruiser at the Brighton Speed Trials and again swept the board and were officially ‘retired ‘ from competition by the organisers in 2003. The PT Bruiser was also achieving success in the UK National Championship in Super Comp and Super Pro with the trophy cabinet filling up nicely.
At this time, through Dave Gibbons, Paul was introduced to an ex-pat drag racer who was visiting England from the States, Tony Morris. Paul and Tony Morris immediately formed a very firm friendship and Tony invited Paul over to the States to help Paul with expanding his knowledge of Drag Racing by crewing and driving at NHRA Divisional events. The culmination of this is that Paul stayed with Tony Morris as his guest for a month to obtain his NHRA Super Pro dragster license and compete at the Bradenton Best of Both Worlds 5 Day event in 2004. This saw Paul sharing the driving duties in Tony Morris’s BLP backed Undercover Slipjoint Dragster. Paul has since returned on many occasions in the years preceding this and has continued to learn through crewing and competing and use the knowledge gained to teach and train pupils at the Paul Marston’s Drag Race School. In the latest techniques and methods employed in the States.
This has produced, through the Drag Race School, to date:-
4 UK National Champions
7 Track Champions
14 No1 Qualifiers
16 National Event winners
Tony Morris has played a major part in these results and still does now, Paul would like to recognise Tonys contribution to his success.
The results speak for themselves and the drivers who achieved them are a testament to themselves, all the school did was help them along some.
During this time Paul has also launched a racecar rental programme where drag race drivers are offered an “arrive and drive” service. The drivers can get as involved as they want and learn how it all comes together or just literally arrive and drive.
This has proved very successful and has also provided the opportunity for TV and magazine journalists to experience what it’s actually like to drive a drag racecar. Amongst the list are:-
Eurodragsters very own Tog
Ben Collins (aka The Stig) – Channel 5 Fifth Gear
Paul currently competes in Pro and Super Pro in the UK National Drag Racing Championship, runs his own businesses and hosts DRE Radios weekly shows.