TURNER – Frenchville native Shawn Martin was just a teenager when he got grease and dirt under his fingernails and the obsession of speed crept into his heart at dirt racing tracks in northern Maine in the mid-1990s.

This past fall, after nearly a decade on dirt and asphalt tracks in northern and southern Maine, Martin drove his Team 94 1999 red Monte Carlo to the 2004 Late Model Stock championship at Oxford Plains Speedway in Oxford. That came after being Oxford’s Rookie of the Year in the Strictly Stock class in 2001 and winning the Ironman Race Series title and the Little Guys Race championship at Oxford Plains in 2002 and 2003.

Last summer he won and placed second in two races on the American-Canadian Tour, second only to Dale Shaw, a former NASCAR Busch North champion. In 2004 and this year he has a deal with Whorff Motor Sports of Bath to drive their pro stock cars in preparation for NASCAR drivers competing at Oxford Plains Speedway. Last year he drove a Matt Kenseth car and this year it is for a yet-to-be-named NASCAR driver who will race in the Oxford 250.

“We [Martin, his parents, and his crew] are all excited about getting ready for this eighth year in racing,” Martin said Sunday morning. “Last season was a dream season.”

“I have an excellent team, and that makes a big difference, and so much fun,” he added. “I waited a long time for this championship [the 2004 season], and it finally happened. It’s a great feeling.”

Martin, 26, traces his “obsession” back to the days when he raced go-karts in northern Maine. He started helping Mike Thibodeau, then his father’s mechanic at Martin’s Service in Frenchville, with Thibodeau’s car at the former Spud Speedway in Caribou.

“Back then it was just going with Mike, helping him out at the track,” he said. “Then it was my own bomber car at Spud [Speedway] and the dirt track at the Lakeview [in St. Agatha.]”

He raced while attending Northern Maine Technical College (now Northern Maine Community College) in Presque Isle. After school, he moved south to take a job at Oxford Networks to be closer to Oxford Plains.

When he’s not installing digital telephone equipment, Martin and his crew are working on the Monte Carlo. During the winter, they literally tear the car apart and rebuild it from the chassis up to new paint and a rebuilt motor and powertrain.

He will start his fifth season at Oxford in May. He will be running his Monte Carlo in the Late Model Stock division, this time as the reigning champion.

This winter they are making the car according to specifications of the American-Canadian Tour on which he plans to run five races in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

“The crew is excited and so am I,” he said. “We think it will be a great year.

“And, it all started on dirt tracks in northern Maine.”

Martin is married now, since November, to his high school sweetheart, Michelle Derosier of St. Agatha. She’s a member of his crew along with crew chief Greg Letourneau, John Randolph, John Kiley, his parents Frank and Joyce Martin, Brian Sicote, Rich Young, Mark and Tammy Weston, Jake Fongemie, and Brad Hammond.

Martin’s efforts on the track can be followed on the Internet at www.team94 racing.com.

While contracts have not been finalized for 2005, in the past Martin has been sponsored by Bombardier Recreational Products and some Skidoo dealers in Maine, Oxford Networks, Crazy Horse Racing, the makers of his engine and powertrain, Derosier Farms of St. Agatha, Kiley Excavation, Roy’s All Steak Hamburgers, TRH Trucking, Weston Chandler Funeral Homes, Oxford Hills Dental Associates, Wallingford Equipment of Auburn, Amsoil, Trask Inc. of Wilton, Frechette’s in Dixfield, Richardson’s Boat Yard in Windham, Watson Property Management, and RCS Racing.