Nick Martin WIDE OPEN- ISCARS

Nick Martin made his ISCARS debut during the 2011 season at Marvin Ragan’s Watermelon Capital Speedway (Cordele, GA) and is our WIDE OPEN driver this week. Martin wheeled the #110, later changed to #0, Torbert Trucking Ford Focus, as a teammate to four-time series’ champion Danny Bagwell. Martin had an impressive six race run with four top 5 finishes and starting on the pole for two of those.

Being a rookie in ISCARS this season, Martin explained, “coming into a new crowd of people and worrying about being accepted and respected as a driver” was the most difficult part of his first season with the series. What might have helped Martin get more comfortable with ISCARS was running at Hickory in earlier October. “I enjoyed all three (of the tracks) but I mostly enjoyed Hickory because it reminds me of my home track (Sayre Speedway),” Nick said about the tracks he ran at this year. Hickory was the place where Nick had his best finish of the season, coming home with a third place podium finish.

Martin was running an older styled ISCARS body this season, essentially a back up car prepared by Danny Bagwell and his #10 Torbert Trucking/Five Brothers Produce crew. Bagwell gave Martin the advice and experience needed transition from a local racer to a national tour driver. “He (Bagwell) helped me with how my car should be handling at each track,” Nick noted when talking about his mentor.

As the month of December was approaching, Martin was not thinking about going away from the track for a break, he was rather thinking about headed south to the Snowball Derby. Nick made it to Five Flags Speedway on December 2nd for the Modified race which was a long day. “We had motor issues but got that fixed and had a car during the race. It was unfortunate to get caught up in a wreck and then later on be parked for an oil leak” Martin explained about running in the modified feature race.

In addition to racing during the off season, Nick also talked about some of the other exciting things he is doing. Martin has been working a lot at his family’s business- M & M Wrecker Service located in his hometown of Sumiton, AL, as well as “just enjoying time with” his “family during the off season.” Nick also shared that he has a new website, www.nickmartinracing.com, which also hosts his new free fan club. By his side at every race this season was his girlfriend, Nicole Ferguson, who has also been a huge help in promoting Nick on the web.

Racing 2 Cure is a non-profit organization that is fighting cancer one lap at a time, and a new initiative that Nick Martin has joined. “I have seen church members and fellow racing friends suffer from the loss of loved ones because of cancer. I am happy to be part of Racing2Cure so that I can help these families as well as my racing career” Nick said about joining the fight with Racing 2 Cure. 40% of your donation helps Nick continue racing and the other 60% goes back to help cancer families with their daily needs. To donate to Nick’s efforts you can visit racing2cure.org/drivers/NickMartinRacing.

At the time of publishing, Nick is unsure of his 2012 plans but he is hoping to be back in the seat of an ISCARS’ racecar in next season. If any news does break about his 2012 plans you can be sure to see them first on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NickMartinRacing.