Mike Marlar(157) racing with Brandon Overton(76)
Mike Marlar suffered nothing short of a disastrous weekend two weeks ago in the Karl Kustoms Bristol Dirt Nationals at the Bristol Motor Speedway. The 2018 World of Outlaws CASE Construction Late Model Series champion was involved in two separate crashes that inflicted heavy damage on his Longhorn Chassis machine. But on Thursday night at the Volunteer Speedway, all was made right.
The 44-year-old driver from Winfield, Tennessee drove to a convincing victory in front of a huge crowd at the Bulls Gap, Tennessee facility to earn a $20,000 payday from the Kyle Larson Presents, FloRacing Late Model Challenge powered by Tezos event that attracted a top notch field of competitors.
The obviously excited driver expressed just how pleased he was to beat out such a great lineup of drivers during his victory lane interview with Dustin Jarrett of FloRacing.com.
“It’s awesome to win here,” Marlar stated. “I got to finish in front of two of my heroes tonight. There was a time when I couldn’t even think about beating Scott(Bloomquist) and Jimmy(Owens). It’s awesome to see Scott back racing again, the sport’s not the same without him.”
Furthermore, Marlar pointed to his teams recovery from the difficulties in Bristol.
“My team really needed it,” the three-time Knoxville Late Model Nationals winner declared. “We had a really rough week up at Bristol a couple of weeks ago. We could have won, I feel like, three of the four or at least half of the four, but things kept happening to take us out of it. We really needed that. Ronne Delk, my car owner, gives me all the right tools and he’s really stepped up in a big way in the last couple of years as it keeps getting more competitive. It’s awesome to win a race for Ronnie and my team and all my sponsors.”
The badly damaged car of @MikeMarlar. For the second straight night this car was involved in a hard crash. Fortunately, Marlar walked away under his own power. #DirtLM pic.twitter.com/SUXbjMXkip
— Richard Allen/InsideDirtRacing.com (@RichardAllenIDR) April 3, 2022
With himself, runner-up Owens, and third finishing Bloomquist all from the Volunteer State, Marlar was glad to have led the Tennessee podium parade in his home state as he also looked forward to a big opportunity coming this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a good team and to travel all over the country but when we come back to east Tennessee I know it’s going to be a homerun,” he said. “It really amps me up to put on a good show because there’s so many great people here that come up to watch these races. It feels good to win this race in east Tennessee and have three Tennessee boys up front. I’ve got a big weekend this week, I’m going to get to run the NASCAR Truck race. It feels good to get off on the right foot.”
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