Jason Martin’s 2023 season with the American Sprint Car Series National Tour was one for the record books.
Nine wins – more than doubling his career total entering the year – and his first ASCS National Tour championship.
Entering 2024, Martin saw no reason why he couldn’t go back-to-back. But instead, he found himself on a wild roller coaster that finally brought him his first win of the season last weekend at Arrowhead Speedway.
He started his season on the right foot, justifying his early optimism.
“We had all the confidence in the world,” Martin said. “Felt like we started the first night (at Super Bee Speedway) pretty good. Went forward, had a couple engine problems right off the bat and just a few little things, but we were still running top three, top four, top five.”
After four-straight top 10s to begin the year, highlighted by a runner-up effort at Dodge City Raceway Park in June, ASCS Speedweek in mid-June was when things started to go haywire.
Engine issues and a couple crashes, not of his doing, ended his night early in three of the four events.
“We felt like we were good right before Speedweek and during Speedweek,” Martin said. “Just had a couple crashes, a couple things didn’t go our way. Kind of how it goes, one of those years.
“We hurt a motor down at Texarkana, it was my favorite motor. I had run it like 38 races the year before and that thing really ran good. We only had one other one, and it was a 10-year-old motor, it hasn’t had a lot of the updates. So, we’ve been running that for the last few months and obviously that hurts our Qualifying efforts. It takes a lot of money to get stuff put back together and we haven’t had that. We started the year a little bit shy on funds from some things that happened, and we just weren’t able to stay on top of that to begin with.”
In the span of five days, Martin fell from second to fifth in the standings due to three incidents outside of his control. To make matters worse, health issues stemming from a crash at Tri-State led Martin to make the tough decision to sit out the Batesville Motor Speedway event, causing him to drop outside the top 10 in points.
Upon returning to the Series, Martin racked up three-straight top 10s at Tulsa Speedway, Lakeside Speedway and 81 Speedway. And when the calendar turned to August, those top 10s improved into top fives.
Martin finished in the top five at Dodge City, Big Sky Speedway and twice at Electric City Speedway, which begs the question: what changed?
“Nothing, we haven’t changed hardly anything,” Martin said. “We just kept working at it, physically I got a little bit healthier after my crash at Pocola. Took me about a month to get straightened out and get all my bearings right. Once I got a little closer to 100%, that helped a lot as far as driving.”
During the recent Iowa-Oklahoma weekend, that momentum seemed to shift again with a 17th-place finish at Clay County Fair Speedway and a ninth-place finish on Friday at Arrowhead. And Saturday didn’t seem like it would be any better after a fourth-place finish in his Heat Race placed him 11th on the starting grid.
But once in action, he started passing one after one after one…
“I thought halfway through there, we were running the top, and I thought, ‘This race is over, it’s starting to take rubber up here and everybody’s in a single-file line, we’re probably going to be running eighth or ninth here,” Martin said. “Then, the yellow came out. Everybody started sliding each other, kind of got the racetrack dirtied up. I knew my car was good, I had kind of abandoned the bottom just because I didn’t want to wear it out just in case we ever did get to lap traffic, I might be able to squeak a lap or a corner out down there and pass a guy or two.
“When I went down there, it was really good. Just had to be really patient and wait until you got out on the straightaway to get the moisture. I knew it was there, I just didn’t know if we were going to get the right opportunity to be able to use it.”
Martin got the perfect opportunity. He restarted fourth with six laps to go, and with the top three drivers – Brady Baker, Seth Bergman and Matt Covington – all running the cushion, Martin made quick work of Covington and Bergman on the low side and cleared Baker with three to go before pulling away for the $10,000 victory.
“I’ve always felt like we’ve had cars capable of winning races, a lot of races,” Martin said. “It’s just a matter of do we put all the pieces of the puzzle together right.”
Martin may be out of the running for the ASCS Emmett Hahn Championship Trophy this year, but his goal for the final 10 races of the year is to build momentum heading into the Germfree Southern Sprint Car Shootout at Volusia Speedway Park on Jan. 30-Feb. 1 to kick off 2025.
On that list are two tracks Martin competed at earlier in the year – Riverside International Speedway and RPM Speedway – and he expects to be in contention to win at both facilities.
“I felt like we were really good at West Memphis and kind of got taken out,” Martin said. “We were pretty good down there at RPM as well. I typically like the short, slick racetracks, so I don’t see why we won’t be competitive and have some success.”
Martin and the rest of the National Tour stars will resume the season at Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis, AR for the World Short Track Challenge, Sept. 27-28. The two-night event will be co-sanctioned with the ASCS Hurricane Area Super Sprints and the USCS and will wrap up with a $10,000-to-win Feature on Saturday night.
Can’t make it to the track? Watch every lap live on DIRTVision.
