They say a hooked-up car “is on rails,” but Jason Martin may have taken that a bit too literally. He rode the front rail to win the Malvern Bank 360 Sprint Series feature last Friday at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa.
“When you are leading a race, you don’t know or see who is second or how far behind you they are, and sometimes you can push too hard to the finish line,” said Martin, 40, of Lincoln, Nebraska. “I just got around four cars in the third and fourth turn. Getting around lapped traffic can sometimes be a little hairy. A window opened up and I tried to fill the hole.”
Martin ran the outside groove for most the race. He didn’t anticipate the slickness of the track in the grooves below him. Martin sought to stay ahead of Cory Ledger, of Omaha, Nebraska, who would finish second.
“There was a nice little cushion up top,” Martin said. “When I went down to get through traffic, my car just slid right up the track and into the concrete.”
Fortunately, the mishap caused minimal damage.
“We tore up the right-front wheel,” said Martin. “Luckily it was nothing more than that.”
Martin has raced sprint cars for 24 years. Last year he followed the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS). Martin finished fourth in points and earned rookie of the year honors for the tour. He had planned to head to the ASCS event at Super Bee Speedway in Chatham, Louisiana. When rains cancelled the night at Super Bee, Martin headed to Iowa for the Shelby County Speedway race.
“I plan to be dedicated to the ASCS national series this year,” Martin said. “I will be chasing national tour points unless there is a rainout. Then I may wind up at a Malvern Bank 360 event, or any event for winged 360 sprint cars.”
Jason Martin followed up his wild win with a second on Saturday at Shelby County Speedway.
“It was a really close race at the end,” said Martin. “I won’t crash a guy to win a race — I’m not that kind of racer. I ran a clean second-place and I feel that was a respectable finish.”
Outside Groove Note of Transparency: Added how Jason Martin finished on Saturday (2023-04-13).
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
