Hobby Truck racing is a big part of small-town life.
This 1968 GMC pickup represents three generations of a racing family, and it tells a great story about what it takes to field a team in a very competitive racing series.
Jerry Sutherland
Hobby Truck racing is as affordable as racing can be, but it still takes money, talent, time, and sponsors. That’s why Doug Mark counts his blessings—a son and a grandson who have autobody and auto tech skills.
They also love racing and the family fields three Hobby Truck entries—Doug’s GMC, his son’s ’68 Chevy and his grandson’s Square-body Chevy.
Doug said his GMC was a junkyard disaster when he found it, so he wasn’t worried about putting it on the track where bent metal is just a turn away during a race. Doug’s son handled the mechanical side of the truck, and his grandson did the body work and paint.
There’s a 5.3 LS under the hood because Doug loves the affordability, power, and reliability of the legendary Chevy power plant. His son has it running like a clock and Doug said he’s very competitive in his class with the ’68 GMC.
There’s a full rollbar in the truck, the inner fenders are gone, the interior is stripped down to metal, because this is a racing vehicle and weight requirements dictate a barebone look. It’s all about functional gauges—not air conditioning and a state-of-the-art sound system.
Doug’s truck is more factory-like underneath because it retains a stock C-10 chassis and suspension, with upgraded brakes and steering components to handle the competition on race day. There’s a track camber to the front wheels because these trucks run on tracks—not your local freeway.
Believe it or not, this truck runs with a manual three-speed transmission, stock exhaust system, and a two-barrel carburetor. It’s not far removed from grandpa’s farm and that’s why Doug’s family is competitive in its class. The fuel tank is where the truck bed used to be in the stock version.
Doug said this is still a very costly hobby, but he’s shielded from some of the expense because of the talent in his family. He added that this racing is competitive, but not nasty, so the truck has a few dings and some door doughnuts—but nothing that his grandson can’t fix.
In fact, his grandson loves the contact and sees those scars as badges of honor—even if he has to fix major damage when it happens.
They typically run Hobby Trucks on 1/3-mile local tracks and Doug said he routinely hits 80 miles per hour—fast enough to get very ugly, very fast if something goes wrong.
Racing is a huge part of the Mark family and they’re lucky enough to be a team with all the talent to be a force in the Hobby Truck series. Doug described his GMC as “A rust bucket heading to the crusher”.
That may be a humble beginning, but Doug’s truck is now priceless because it draws three generations together in a world where competition is a way of life.
Not a bad ending for a rust bucket ’68 GMC.
Jerry Sutherland
By: Jerry Sutherland
Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post, Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.
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