Mike Marlar
Many people reach a time in their lives or their careers in which they find a comfort zone. In other words, many reach a point in which things are going in a direction they had always hoped for. Mike Marlar may very well have found a time in his career in which preparation is meeting opportunity and race wins are proving to be the end result for his Ronnie Delk owned race team.
The Winfield, Tenn. driver scored a number of wins during the second half of the 2015 season and has carried that momentum into the first half of the current campaign.
“I’m usually not the kind of guy who starts that good early in the year but it seems like in the fall I kind of excel,” Marlar declared in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “With this year starting off pretty good in the spring it’s making me feel pretty good about the rest of the season.”
In recent weeks, Marlar has scored feature wins at the Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn., Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, GA and Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, GA. Being able to accumulate multiple wins on such varying types of tracks has the 38-year-old driver excited about future prospects.
“I think we’ve got a real versatile program,” Marlar pointed out. “We’ve got good engines, a good car and the best help we’ve ever had crew wise. I guess when you put yourself around really good people you get good results, and that’s what you’re seeing from us right now.”
Mike Marlar has won races on a wide variety of tracks this season
With those positives in mind, the former winner of such big Dirt Late Model events as the $25,000-to-win Hillbilly 100 and the $20,000-to-win Clash at the Mag has his sights set on amassing more wins in the sport’s elite events. He plans to run in the prestigious upcoming races at Florence Speedway as well as The Dirt Late Model Dream at the Eldora Speedway. The Delk Equpment Sales team also hopes to take on the challenge of racing in some events contested in the Midwestern part of the country later this year.
Marlar believes the key to his most recent success is no real secret. Hard work and ingenuity are providing top finishes.
“We’ve been doing a whole lot of testing and changing and playing trying to get ready for all these big races coming up in the summer,” the driver explained. “We’ve been able to win some races with different things on the car so that makes you feel pretty good about your car. It seems like it’s pretty versatile.”
And the hope for the Delk team is to get the most out of their Capital Race Cars chassis and Cornett Race Engines equipment during the remainder of the season.
“The last couple of years I really haven’t raced a lot. I’ve raced quite a bit less than some of the guys who travel do. This year we’ve kind of got everything set up with my work so that we can really go out and race a lot. The car owner is pumped and wanting to race and the chassis builder and engine builder and the crew guys are pumped up so we’re looking forward to going out and racing this year like we might not get to race next year.”
