Dorin (Dode) Martin lived in Fallbrook for 90 years — he moved here when he was 1 yr old and spent all his life here except for military service in WWII and a brief stint logging in Oregon.
When he was 13 (before he had a drivers license), he bought an old jalopy and drove it around — there was no one to give him a ticket. His first experience of racing was in Fallbrook, on local roads and streets, including his only crash — in his dragster. He was a self-taught mechanic, learning to fix cars by tinkering. Eventually he trained others to repair cars and drive them.
During WWII, Dode was sent to Germany as a rifleman and saw combat for a month, including the Battle of the Bulge. He got “trench foot” (frozen feet). It took three months in bed to recover.
For 53 years, Dode had an automotive business in Carlsbad that worked on all kinds of cars.
Dode had a lifelong passion for drag racing. When he first went to Santa Ana to race, he didn’t have a helmet and goggles, but they let him race anyway. He built Dragmaster Company into a worldwide business — they won 250 races. Dode built cars that went 170 miles per hour and drove them himself.
During a long and storied career, Dode worked on and built more cars than he can remember. One noteworthy event was when Wally Parks of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) enlisted Dode to soup up Dodge cars so that they could better compete with Ford and Chevrolet. Dode wrung more and more speed out of his cars — he was the first person to use a parachute with a drag racing car, in conjunction with a parachute manufacturer — at 170 mph! Once Dode demonstrated the usefulness of parachutes, everyone started using them. He also met Parnelli Jones, who had family locally. Some of Dode’s cars are now in museums.
In 1998, Dode was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1998.
