Brent Marshall wants drag racing to continue to thrive in northern BC.
Having grown up in Houston, 3 ½ hours west of the city, Marshall’s love of fast cars and racing were well established in 2012 when he bought Prince George Motorsport Park.
Now living in West Kelowna, where he operates his own software company and works as a commercial real estate broker, Marshall has decided to donate his ownership of the city’s quarter-mile drag strip to the not-for-profit Northern Interior Timed Racing Organization (NITRO) society to guarantee drag racers will always have a place to play.
“The intent was always to make sure that that track was safe and secure for the people of Prince George, spectators, participants, and we get people coming from Western Canada and the U.S. coming to use that and we want to make sure it’s always there, it’s always available,” said Marshall.
“I’m donating it to the community of Prince George and the NITRO society so it can stay there and people know it’s there in perpetuity.”
In the first four years he was the sole owner of the track, now known as NITRO Motorsports Park, Marshall made significant improvements. He built washroom/shower/laundry facilities, stocked a man-made pond with trout to encourage kids to learn how to fish, created a beach area and playground, and secured a $300,000 sponsorship from Rolling Mix Concrete and IDL Projects to repave a 720-foot concrete front section of the strip to improve the staging area.
Marshall said the property was recently appraised at $2 million. He estimates the replacement value of securing the land and building a new quarter-mile track would be in excess of $10 million. He says it's considered “one of the nicest drag racing facilities in Canada.
“You could never build one, it’s so expensive, you need so much land,” he said. “If the track shut down we’d never see quarter-mile racing again.”
In December 2015, Marshall formed a partnership with three other local investors – Rod Belsham, John Paolucci and Doug Shaw - who each agreed to pay $50,000 for a 25 per cent share of the facility, which was then renamed NITRO Motorsports Park.
The ownership group worked out a deal to sell the property back to the club for $600,000, which Marshall says was less than half the $1.5 million he had invested in the facility and the club agreed to a 15-year mortgage to eventually become owners of the property.
But there were a few speedbumps along the way that rocked that plan.
In April 2023, the three other shareholders filed a BC Supreme Court petition against Marshall after he hired a contractor to log the forested area that borders the drag strip “without unanimous consent of the directors.”
That logging happened in 2022 and 2023 and the timber was sold to Canfor with Marshall retaining the proceeds. According to Marshall, the money ($140,000) was to be used to fund repaving of the return lane for drag racers, after the pavement had become root-bound and was getting too rough for vehicles.
The case was settled out of court and earlier this year Marshall bought the other three shareholders out for $225,000.
“Brent secured a new mortgage with the BC Bank and we now make those mortgage payments, so we had to pay the $250,000 that was left on the mortgage plus the $225,000 that he had to pay the shareholders,” said NITRO president Foji Dhansaw. “Realistically we owed $450,000 before the fight and now we owe $475,000 after the fight.
“He’s calling it a donation, but at the end of the day we’re making the mortgage payments. So now the mortgage is under his name but it’s not really a donation. It’s a commitment that it will always be a race track.”
Dhansaw said the logging profits were placed into the club’s bank account and the club agreed to give $100,000 of that back to Marshall, to be applied to the mortgage, which is now down to $375,000, with the club retaining $40,000 of the logging profits to cover its operating costs.
Although the mortgage is under Marshall’s name, Dhansaw says the NITRO club pays the insurance and taxes on the property.
“Our goal is to start fundraising and start paying that thing off,” said Dhansaw, who figures the club will be mortgage-free in about 10 years.
Dhansaw says the other three partners of the ownership group deserve recognition for what they did to keep the drag strip operating by donating to the club, especially in the nine years since Marshall left the city.
He said Marshall offered to help him get sponsors to keep the track operating but Dhansaw told him there was not much interest from the local business community to invest in a property that was privately owned.
“Why would I want to put money into somebody’s facility to make Brent Marshall’s property go up in value, so I said, ‘you need to make something that says that you are no longer involved, and it’s the club’s, so we can actually go out and get sponsors,’” said Dhansaw.
“That’s why we did what we did. I really want to give the other three credit for what they did to get us here too. Brent is doing the right thing and I also want to make sure the other three don’t still carry a tarnished name because a lot of the community think they did something wrong. They didn’t, they did nothing wrong.”
The quarter-mile drag strip is sanctioned by the International Drag Racing Association and has also been used for snowmobile races, mud bogs and fishing derbies.
Marshall says he’s had people inquire about developing an oval track for vintage motorcycles and he’s hoping other community groups will reach out to the not-for-profit NITRO society with ideas for other uses. Marshall is asking local companies to get involved in sponsoring the club and its activities to help pay from track improvements.
Marshall has long been a promoter of charitable causes that help local people, especially those living in rural and remote communities.
He’s involved with August Luxury Motorcars, an exotic sports car dealership in Kelowna in the Okanagan Dream Rally fundraiser which puts kids in the passenger seats of Lamborghinis and Ferraris. Held every two years, the event has raised more than $3.3 million for Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver, Kelowna General Hospital Foundation and JoeAnna’s House, which provides accommodation for families of patients being treated at KGH.
Marshall started his hospital fundraising efforts when he lived in Prince George while he was dealer principal of Northland Dodge. He created a program in which $100 from each vehicle sold at the dealership was donated to charity. That resulted in a $1.2 million donation in 2011 for the children’s wing/outdoor play area at University Hospital of Northern BC. Marshall was also behind a fundraising drive that built the cancer ward family room at UHNBC.
As REMAX Centre City Realty franchise owner, Marshall convinced realtors to donate a portion of their commissions to raise $120,000 for the All-Wheels Adventure Park in Blackburn.
Marshall’s software company creates websites for automotive and RV dealers. He also started a commercial real estate company involved in business and commercial sales in the province, and one of his listings is the Victoria Medical Building in Prince George. He will donate 50 per cent of commissions to a charity determined by the seller.
“That allowed us to donate $1 million last year,” Marshall said.
“Twenty years ago in Prince George you had a lot of those drivers (of charitable causes) and my big one is to try to encourage others to make (donations) part of their business model. If you do a small amount over time it will add up to huge things.”
Marshall, a former volunteer firefighter, was involved in the community HEROS effort to push the provincial government for policy changes to enhance northern BC’s pre-hospital care system and give Prince George a dedicated medical helicopter service. He has since started an ambulance service – Advanced Life Services. It allows people to go online to reserve a retrofitted ambulance with a nurse on board, if needed, to transfer a patient to an out-of-town hospital. He has two ambulances nearly ready and an eventual fleet of six that will bring them anywhere in the province where they are needed.
“I had a good friend in Houston whose father passed away while waiting for transport down to the Okanagan,” said Marshall. “That shouldn’t happen in this day and age. I want to place one of the units in Prince George and one on the Okanagan, areas that are underserved.”
He plans to have the service operating as soon as he has the medical equipment to outfit the ambulances.
NITRO Motorsport Park timeline
1978 -- Original owners Gordon Schade and Ernie Schultz open North Central Motorsport Park.
1994 - Ron Cowie of Tsawwassen buys facility after Schade dies. Cowie makes improvements to bring the track up to National Hot Rod Association standards.
1995 -- NCMP becomes the northernmost NHRA track and hosts its first Division 6 points meets.
2010 -- Shane Lodjn buys track from Cowie.
2011 -- Track changes its name to Prince George Motorsports Park and switches to International Hot Rod Association as the sanctioning body.
2012 -- Brent Marshall purchases the track, which is renamed Northland Dodge Motorsports Park.
2013 -- Rolling Mix Concrete and IDL Projects make $300,000 investment to repave staging area and first section of drag strip. New washroom/shower/laundry facilities installed.
2015 -- NITRO (Northern Interior Timed Racing Organization) takes over operation of the facility. Salem Contracting donates $20,000 to grind concrete track to improve traction for high-horsepower vehicles.
2016 -- Marshall agrees to sell the track to NITRO.
2024 – Marshall buys out investors Rod Belsham, John Paolucci and Doug Shaw and agrees to donate the facility to NITRO to keep it in the club’s hands perpetually.
