Marshall Grant K-4

[Master Oil Racing Team]

ALSO SEE: http://www.boatracingfacts.com/forum...marshall+grant

Marshall Grant was one of the guys to beat in the Alky division. I don't know when he started. Maybe Randy will fill us in on Marshall's early career. I also don't know when he quit driving himself. When I started in 1966 I think it was Dick Pond who was driving for Marshall. Every driver he had was a winner. Of course, Marshall is an expert mechanic and he was good at set ups. He has tons of trophies in his house.

In 1972 Marshall was President of N.O.A. At that time NOA was floundering and trying to find direction. A lot more of the APBA drivers came from the north to race in NOA than NOA drivers went north. AOF was just starting and a lot of us went to Gravois Mills Missouri to see what it was all about. We had a meeting at one of the rooms saturday night and Marshall layed out what he thought were some of the troubles of NOA and how to provide a better show. That was the main influence on how my Dad approached his organzation of races after that. Marshall had seen all this coming almost a year earlier when he and Joe Rome spent several hours discussing it at Alexandria in 1971.

We had a lot of enjoyment being around Marshall and his racing crew. My favorite engine was one that we bought from Marshall and was I think the last 700cc alky engine that Billy Seebold ran while he drove for Marshall. Whenever Johnny Cash's band was playing in Houston, San Antonio or Corpus Christi, he would let us know and we would go to the show. Something Joe Rome told me that I wasn't aware of was the show they put on in San Antonio around 1970 was a benefit for a friend of Johnny and Marshall, Tex Ritter. Tex had lost all he had, (I forgot the details), and the show was to help him out. Ironically, Tex's son John Ritter (one of the stars of Three's Company) died the same day that Johnny Cash did.