Mike Marlar celebrates his WoO win in Tazewell.
Mike Marlar is suddenly on a nice roll. The Winfield, Tenn. driver won the twice postponed Spring Nationals race at the Tri-County Race Track in Brasstown, NC on Thursday night then added a World of Outlaws Late Models triumph at the Tazewell Speedway on Saturday evening.
The win in front of a large crowd in Tazewell paid $10,000 to the ‘Winfield Warrior’.
Pennsylvania’s Rick Eckert led the way among the 24 Super Late Model competitors to post a time in qualifying when he turned in a lap of 11.390 seconds. Marlar and Shane Clanton also earned pole positions for their respective heat races through qualifying.
The night’s three heat race winners were Eckert, Eric Wells and Tim McCreadie. Those three drivers along with the second place finishers in each heat were sent to a redraw to determine the first three starting rows in the feature event.
After that redraw, the top-6 starting positions were set as McCreadie, Marlar, Eckert, Billy Ogle, Jr., Wells and Clanton.
McCreadie took the early lead at the start of the 50-lap main event as he and Marlar battled furiously for the top spot during the race’s early circuits. However, that fight was interrupted on lap 3 by a caution that involved the 4th starting Ogle. His car was damaged badly enough that he had to got to the pit area for repairs and was forced to start from the rear of the field once the green flag waved again.
The feature proved to be one filled with cautions as a total of eight yellow flags waved throughout the 50 lap distance.
The lead car of McCreadie brought out a caution on lap 9 when the New York driver suffered a flat right rear tire which sent him to the pit area and eventually to the tail of the field on the ensuing restart. That elevated Marlar to the lead with Clanton, Eckert, Wells and Darrell Lanigan trailing.
As is often the case on the super high-banked third-mile oval, traffic became an issue for the leaders on multiple occasions. Marlar experienced near disaster when a car he was lapping suddenly changed lanes and caused significant damage to the nose of the #157 Rocket. For the second half of the race, Marlar drove with his hood buckled up in front of him.
The frequent cautions did serve to give the lead cars some reprieve from lapped traffic. However, with single-file restarts being employed by the World of Outlaws officials on this track, that relief would often prove to be short-lived.
A final caution with just two laps remaining set up a dash to the finish, but Mike Marlar was able hold off his challengers to earn his first career World of Outlaws win. Following the winner to the finish line were Shane Clanton, Rick Eckert, Darrell Lanigan, Eric Wells, Brandon Overton, Chase Junghans, Morgan Bagley, Clint Smith and Boom Briggs.
“You never want to say you could pass a guy or you couldn’t because you never know,” Marlar said of his chances to get around McCreadie without the early leader’s misfortune. “But my car was good and I was definitely on attack mode. It’s not like I was playing defense, I was definitely on offense. ”
Regarding the damage to his car after contact with the slower machine, Marlar declared, “I was lucky that it didn’t hurt the radiator. We were lucky to finish, let alone win.”
Marlar was glad to score a win so close to his east Tennessee home. “Yeah, there’s a lot of my buddies up in the grandstands tonight,” he said. “In these races you’re just so focused on getting the job done, but it’s really cool when you think about it to win in your home area in front of the people who like and support you.”
The damage done to Marlar’s nose after contact with a slower car.
