30-year-old Anthony “Anto” Martinez had a knack for cheering up his friends.
“I just can’t believe it, I'm just still in disbelief that he’s just gone,” Martinez's friend Jake Zagrean said.
His friends say Martinez always had a smile on his face.
“Definitely his infectious laugh,” friend Cody Treguboff said. “He was always happy and laughing and just being goofy.”
Martinez died earlier this week after a fall at a job site at in Buckeye.
“I broke down,” Zagrean said. “It was insane. Still in disbelief myself.”
Martinez had a big presence in the local car scene. On Sunday dozens of his friends and family came together for a memorial ride.
“He’d be honored, I really think he would,” Zagrean said.
“He definitely loved his car, his Subaru, motorcycles, anything with an engine in it,” said Treguboff.
Martinez's 2005 Subaru STI led the cruise on Sunday. Just days earlier it wasn’t even running.
“Actually the last time I spoke with him he said he’d bought a new motor for it and he was in the process of getting it running,” Jakob Woods said.
Martinez never got the chance to get it running, but a few of his friends worked for hours Saturday to get the car in good enough shape to drive. Because that's what Martinez would have done for someone else.
“He actually went out of his way to pay for somebody else’s suit so they could be in my wedding for us,” Woods said. “He was just a great guy.”
“I really hope everyone strives to be a man like him,” Zagrean said.
Zagrean’s last conversation with Martinez has been playing in his mind for days.
“I answered the phone and said, ‘Hey Anto I can’t talk right now, I’m really busy.’ And I said I’ll call him back and then this happened,” Zagrean said. “Always hug your families, always say your goodbyes, you never know when the last goodbye is.”
