SPRING HILL, Tenn. — Growing up on his family’s farm south of Nashville, participation in FFA was seemingly a natural for Sterling Marlin, a high school student interested in agriculture and racing.

In the FFA class at Spring Hill High School, Marlin learned such things as how to build small motors, how to correctly construct a barn, plumbing and electrical wiring. While he may not have used those skills during his career as a NASCAR driver, he has in his time after racing.

“It was one of my favorite classes,” he remembered. “Racing didn’t cross over with many of those things, but in farming they sure did.”

Marlin won 10 races – including the Daytona 500 in 1994 and 1995 – during his career in NASCAR, the National Assoc. for Stock Car Auto Racing. He retired in 2010.

The subjects he studied in his FFA classes were things to be used in daily life, he noted. “Everybody ought to be made to take it,” he noted. “I think the kids need it. There’s a lot of stuff you can use. We learned how to paint cars, anything to make a living.

“Today’s kids don’t know how to do anything. They play their computer games and figure they know everything.”

Marlin is the son of the late former NASCAR driver Coo Coo Marlin. Sterling grew up on his family’s 550-acre farm, where they raised corn, wheat, tobacco and cattle.

“I always dreamed of racing, it was always No. 1 to me,” he explained. “I bought my first racecar with tobacco money. We had to do farming to survive.”

Today, Marlin farms the same 550 acres he grew up on, along with another 300 he rents. While he no longer has crops, he raises about 250 head of Angus beef cattle.

Despite announcing in 2012 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinsonism, Marlin continues to race at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville, a local short track that was formerly part of the NASCAR circuit. He drives in the Pro Late Model Series. (Parkinsonism is related to Parkinson’s disease, and is characterized by symptoms such as tremors, slow movement or muscle stiffness.)

With the Daytona 500 – the annual start of NASCAR’s season – coming up Feb. 22, Marlin said, “when Daytona rolls around, you get to thinking about racing (in the Cup series). But I still race in Nashville. I can go there and get racing out of my system.”

As for his NASCAR career, Marlin said winning back-to-back Daytona 500 races would be his biggest thrill. He may be remembered by many fans, however, for an incident during the 2002 Daytona 500 race.

After the race was temporarily stopped and put under a red flag because of an accident, Marlin hopped out of his car to check for damage to the right front fender. He was seen on television coverage of the race tugging on the fender to pull it away from the tire.

Fixing a car during a red flag is forbidden by NASCAR, so Marlin, who had been leading the race before the accident, had to restart the race back in the field. He finished eighth.

“Yeah, I remember pulling that fender out,” Marlin said, chuckling while reminiscing about his “do it yourself” incident.