Silverstone plays host to 55 years of Marshall & Fraser Racing Team motor sport success

This Easter weekend sees Silverstone host the 55th anniversary celebrations of true British club motor sport legends. The Marshall & Fraser Racing Team, with an average age of 74, have enjoyed great success racing since 1960, with 11 Championship class or outright wins and over 100 race wins to their credit. Their first championship win came in 1969 and their most recent in 2011. Team driver Ginger Marshall won the BARC President's Cup twice as the most successful BARC driver.

In 1959, brothers David and Ginger Marshall with friend Ian Fraser combined their engineering enthusiasm and finances to build a go-kart out of bits of old bicycle. The newly-formed Marshall & Fraser Racing Team entered their first race on Easter Bank Holiday 1960 with Ginger at the wheel, and were sufficiently enthused to start a full season of racing and developing their own machine. In 1963, they achieved their first independent race win.

Next, completely hooked on competitive motor sports, the Team invested their knowledge of the Mini road car into Mini racing. Brian Davies joined in 1965, bringing his aviation engineering experience, and the Team soon flew to its first championship in 1969 with an 850cc Mini.

“The first championship win certainly solidified our thoughts that our jobs really had to support our growing desire to race,” explains David Marshall, 74. “So my brother and I left our respective employment and set up our own garage business in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1970. It was hard work, but it kept engineering and racing at the forefront of our lives. Of course, we got back on track as soon as we could; this time with something a bit different – a Mini Estate car, which was aerodynamically superior and gave us our second championship.”

The Marshall & Fraser Racing Team pride themselves in the fact that they have designed, constructed, developed and financed every machine they have raced. In their quest for success, they even built their own 1 litre engine which was used in two of their Special Saloon racing cars. Their dedication resulted in winning their class in ten Special Saloon Championships and in not finishing lower than third in class over a period of 15 years. The Team’s most successful and crowd-pleasing racing machine was the surf-blue Reliant Kitten, with which they won seven championships between 1982 and 1990.

“We caused a bit of a stir with the Kitten,” explains Ginger Marshall, 72. “We achieved a win with it on its first time out. We had lap records, pole positions, wins, championships, trophies, you name it. We were the victims of our own success in a way. We’d engineered an amazing bit of kit, a bit too good really, and it meant we had to move on to a new challenge.”

Next the Team took on an exciting engineering challenge to develop two open sports cars using a prototype Clubmans car designed by revolutionary designer Ben Bowlby*. The cars were produced in the workshop at Ginger's house. All the work was done in the Team's spare time at their own expense and with no commercial support. After eight years in development, the now five-strong** Marshall & Fraser Racing Team were back on track in 1999 with the Bowlby Mk II and gained a championship class win with the car in 2011.

Today the Team race the innovative Bowlby Mk II in the two litre class of the BRSCC Excool OSS Championship which features open sports cars that are among the fastest club racing cars in the UK. Ginger is still the driver at 72 and hopes to keep going for a while yet!

The Marshall & Fraser Racing Team will kick start their 55th year of racing and celebrate their achievements at the Silverstone season opener on Easter weekend 4th and 5th April 2015.

*Ben Bowlby is now at the forefront of radical race car design with his Nissan DeltaWing and the 2015 Nissan Nismo LMP1 car causing controversy and inspiring awe in the racing world.

**Marshall & Fraser Racing Team: Stephen (Ginger) Marshall, 72, and brother David Marshall, 74, retired garage proprietors. Ian Fraser, 76, retired Oil Company Research Engineer. Brian Davies, 71, retired Airline Executive, current Chair of the Light Aircraft Association. Robin Read, 77, retired NHS Chief Executive.