Martin Cardenas

Martin (pronounced Mar-teen) Cardenas grew up outside of Medellin, Colombia, and started racing motocross when he was 11 years old. He started winning races right away on 80cc machinery. Two years later, in 1995, he went to race a 125, but he was not old enough according to the regulations. So he took his 80, bored it out to 105, beat everyone in the 125cc class and won the
championship!

Cardenas repeated as champion the following year on a real 125cc machine. He continued to win championships in motocross over the next few years, and in 2000 came to the U.S. and raced selected rounds of the AMA series.

In 2001, Martin traveled to Spain for a road race tryout in the competitive CEV National Series, and with a good result landed a ride for the 2002 season. For 2003, Martin earned a ride with the Luis d’Antin Yamaha team in the Spanish series, finishing 7th, while also winning the Latin American Supersport Championship in Colombia. He earned the Supersport Championship the following year in the CEV series with the Promo Racing team.

Cardenas made his debut in the MotoGP 250cc World Championship class in 2005 with teammate Chaz Davies on the Aprilia Germany team, scoring points in enough events to be offered a ride on one of the top Spanish teams. The 2006 250cc Grand Prix season saw Martin start with the private Wurth Honda BQR team, but he was offered a ride with the factory Repsol Honda team when fellow South American Sebastian Porto retired. Unfortunately, Cardenas crashed during the first race weekend and broke his collarbone. He raced several more events, but the collarbone never healed correctly and he was unable to ride at full strength.

Martin moved to the U.S. when a friend of his offered him a ride on a Kawasaki ZX-10R in the AMA Superstock Series. He competed on it in the first three events, but switched to a 600 at the Infineon Raceway event, and was offered a ride to fill in for Michael Barnes when Barnes crashed and broke his wrist on Saturday of that event.

2009 proved to be a breakthrough year for Cardenas, winning seven races – more than anyone else in the class and finishing third overall. Martin won at Road Atlanta, both rounds of the doubleheader at Barber Motorsports Park and backed that up by winning both rounds at Infineon Raceway. Cardenas won again at Road America, put the Team Hammer M4 Suzuki on pole at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in front of the MotoGP crowd, and then won again at Heartland Park Topeka. Cardenas added three more podium finishes, and ended up third in the points standings after an injury forced him to sit out the final round of the season.