KNOXVILLE, IA: A huge roar could be heard at the lower end of the Knoxville Raceway pit area Thursday night around 10 p.m. There was shock, excitement, and even some tears of joy in the Cameron Martin pit stall.
It shows you how much the Knoxville Nationals means to a Sprint Car driver and team. Especially when it’s a smaller organization that wasn’t expected to make any noise on the sport’s biggest stage.
Martin certainly fits that moniker. There is no huge trailer or corporate sponsor. He doesn’t have a big wallet and isn’t a highly touted driver competing on the road with a national series.
But Martin will be right alongside those other drivers Saturday night. The little guy got it done, punching his ticket to Saturday’s Knoxville Nationals A-Main Thursday night in one of the biggest surprises in recent memory.
“I locked into the 360 Nationals a week ago for the first time ever, and that was the highlight of my career. Skyler Prochaska and I, we’ve worked so hard to build our package for him being a new crew chief and me still being … I call myself a fresh driver … it’s just crazy.
“Being able to say I locked into my rookie attempt at the 410 Knoxville Nationals, I’m just soaking it all in. It might take a few weeks, but I’m going to come back Saturday and give it a go.”
Continued Martin, “I don’t consider myself a young guy. I didn’t really start racing until I was 15 or 16 years old, so my laps are a little lower than a lot of the other young guys. So, this exceeds my expectations by a million miles.”
Unthinkable would be a good term to use when describing Martin’s chances coming into the 64th edition of the event. The little-known Iowa driver entered the week with only 27 starts in the 410 Sprint Car division.
Martin isn’t exactly a full-time driver. From August through May, he attends Iowa State University and studies agriculture. The 20-year-old driver jumps behind the wheel of a Sprint Car to simply have some fun.
“I think we’ve made two or three 410 starts at Knoxville,” Martin said. “I ran in the back of the A-Main and didn’t really qualify worth a hoot. I’ve run a 410 here and there … Jackson Motorplex and Huset’s for the High Banks, but I haven’t really been great.
“So, to come here, lay down an amazing qualifying lap to go second quick against Brian Brown, Carson Macedo, Buddy Kofoid and others, it’s insane. My goal tonight was just to make the prelim A-Main and whatever comes, comes. This is so cool to be able to take tomorrow off and come back Saturday and start 15th in the Knoxville Nationals.”
Expectations escalated a bit after Martin laid down the second quickest lap in the field and pocketed a valuable 198 points. Even when he failed to transfer through his heat race, he still had hopes of getting close enough to make Saturday’s B-Main.
Martin took care of business, following Brad Sweet to the stripe to punch his ticket to the 25-Lap preliminary main. Once there, he passed six cars to finish 16th, which was enough to sneak into the show.
“I barely finished in the top eight in the heat race, but it wasn’t anything crazy,” Martin said. “Luckily with the format here, I got to start on the front row of the B-Main, and I wasn’t really nervous, believe it or not. My confidence was at an all-time high starting in clean air.
“I’m a lot better at holding people behind me than trying to pass other drivers. So, yeah, I made 12 clean laps in the B-Main and ended up passing a few cars in the main event, and now, here I am.”
Still, Martin thought he was short when he parked his car after the feature. He figured he would be somewhere in that 17th to 26th-place range in points, which would’ve locked him into Saturday’s B-Main and kept him out of Friday’s Hard Knox program.
Then came the news and an eruption of satisfaction and exhilaration. Martin wasn’t just another car in the pit area. He was the story of the night.
“It took about five minutes for the app to update, and one of our friends came up and said, ‘You locked in,’” Martin said. “We were probably the loudest crew in the whole pit area. We were jumping and down, hugs, screaming. There were a few tears shed.
“It was awesome and shows how much we wanted it as a team. I think a lot of people, they get into a rhythm, and they just do it for a paycheck. I’m doing this to have a lot of fun. Hopefully, someday I can do it full time, but yeah, we wanted it, and we got it.”