Will Martin knows all about drag racing. He grew up around the sport as his father John Martin owned and drove a series of Jam-Air Special Nitro Funny Cars in the 1980s. The cars were named after the family business.

Will emerged on the drag racing scene in 2007 with an index-style alcohol Funny Car in the CIFCA series. After winning CIFCA series championships in 2008 and 2009, Martin went on to drive an alcohol Funny Car in the Heritage Series, capturing another two championships.

Will Martin knows all about drag racing. He grew up around the sport as his father John Martin owned and drove a series of Jam-Air Special Nitro Funny Cars in the 1980s. The cars were named after the family business.

Will emerged on the drag racing scene in 2007 with an index-style alcohol Funny Car in the CIFCA series. After winning CIFCA series championships in 2008 and 2009, Martin went on to drive an alcohol Funny Car in the Heritage Series, capturing another two championships.

In 2011, Martin built his own Nostalgia Funny Car and has been competing in the Nostalgia category ever since.

Now, the 33-year-old is beginning a new chapter in his racing career with the announcement of the recreation of Mike Kase and Dale Armstrong's Speed Racer Omni Funny Car for competition in the Nostalgia Funny Car ranks.

Hall of Fame innovator/driver and crew chief Armstrong drove Kase’s nitro Speed Racer Funny Car for a short stint. At his final event as a driver, the 1981 World Finals, Armstrong set the national elapsed time record of 5.891 seconds.

“We thought long and hard about how we could pay respect to the past while still trying to create some involvement with the kids of the new generation,” Will said. “After a lot of thinking I picked up the phone and called Dale Armstrong. I always looked up to Dale as a kid because he was the man. I told Dale the story about my dad being sick and he told me that Mike (Kase) had passed away a couple of years ago, and Dale said 'go for it' (run the Speed Racer car). We enlisted the services of renowned drag racing artist Rod Burke for the best recreation possible while still putting some modern flair to it.”

Will also plans on making his Speed Racer camp at the races a must-stop for children.

Left to right, Will Martin, wife Cami Martin and their son Andrew John“I have a two and a half-year-old son (Andrew John) and he means the world to me,” Will said. “This whole deal is kind of based around trying to create a legacy for my son to follow.”

According to Will, his team is going to be rebranded from Jam-Air Motorsports to Mach III Motorsports. 

“The Mach III is symbolic of my family and it is also symbolic of establishing a product for the third generation, which is my son,” Will said. “Everything we are doing is focused on having fun and getting the children involved. Next year one of the things we already have set up is we are going to have coloring contests at each race we go to where the kids can come to the pits and get an autograph from the driver and they are also going to get a template of the car.”

Will said that is just part of the interaction children will have the opportunity to experience.

“The kids will have a coloring table and an awning at the back of the pit area and the whole idea is to let their creativity and their minds go wild on what they think the Speed Racer should look like,” Will said. “The idea came to is from our good friend Paul Stohl at PPG, who is painting the car. We will put all those colorings on the back of the trailer and at the end of the event we will pick the winner and give them a special prize.”

As for racing, Will is the process of figuring out his team’s 2015 plans.

“What we really want to do is run the Boise-Bakersfield Blitz series and we want to do more match races to get more kids involved. We also want to run some more of the bigger races and get on the IHRA tour, too” Will said. “We will have to see what opportunities present themselves.”

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