105 Speedway
After wreck, Marlar asks: How slow is too slow?
By Kevin Kovac
Mike Marlar (157) limps to the infield pits. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
UNION, Ky. (Aug. 8) — Mike Marlar tried to be as diplomatic as possible. It’s his nature to look at things in a pragmatic manner.
Nevertheless, after a run-in with a lapped car knocked him from the lead on the 11th circuit of Friday’s second 25-lap Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series semifeature at Florence Speedway, Marlar felt he had to address an evening that saw the pacesetters dealing with slower racers more than usual. | RaceWire
“There’s a whole group of cars in this race, and in a lot of races, that are so far off the pace,” Marlar said. “It’s nothing personal to whoever drives that car … he’s just the one that got me. I watched that first (25-lap) race right there and Jonathan (Davenport) and (eventual winner) Bobby (Pierce) was having a hell of a race and they came up on two (slower) guys, one right in the middle of the track, that had no idea what was going on.
“I don't want to pick on, in quotes, those guys,” he continued. But he noted that he would like a message to be delivered to those competitors: “Listen, boys, you’re two seconds off the pace. This is a $75,000 (to-win) professional race.”
The 51-car field for the weekend’s 43rd annual Sunoco North-South 100 included some entrants at the back end that typically would be weeded out of feature lineups, but all of the racers on hand ran one of the 25-lap semis. That meant the fleet leaders in both prelims were running up on lapped traffic very quickly, adding a degree of difficulty to their bids for the $6,000 first-place prizes.
Marlar, 47, of Winfield, Tenn., found himself in exactly that situation. The second semi’s polesitter, he led the race’s first 11 laps without facing any significant pressure from the pursuing Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio.
But on lap 11 — just five circuits after a restart — Marlar had already reached slower cars. He approached Roger Williams of Independence, Ky., a former Florence regular in his first weekend of action this season, and came off turn four looking to drive past Williams on the outside down the half-mile oval’s homestretch.
As Marlar neared the flagstand, Williams appeared to slide up the track and made contact with Marlar’s car. Marlar’s Skyline Motorsports Longhorn Chassis was squeezed into the outside wall and he immediately slowed with obvious damage to the left-front corner of his machine. Williams’s car sustained damage as well and both drivers limped into the infield on the backstretch as a caution flag was displayed, their races over.
“And you see right there, I mean, that guy came up, we hit, ground me in the fence, and then where the opening in the wall is, I caught the corner of that with the right-front,” Marlar said. “I got damage to the right-front, right-rear, left-front. He hit me in the left-front … his right tire hit me probably by like the number (on the left-side door) and it pushed me into the opening on the front straightaway.”
Moran had a clear view of the incident that eliminated Marlar.
“Not enough room between the lapped car and the wall,” said Moran, who inherited the lead and went on to capture the semifeature. “It looked like that guy just came up on him. And Mikey was running that top, and the lapped car was obviously way slower. He probably didn’t know that Mikey was coming, but at the same time, you got to leave a lane when you’re the last car on the lead lap.
“So just really a bummer for Mikey. Me and Mikey are pretty tight. He had a really good car.”
Williams, who accepted an offer to drive Gary Engle’s Revolution Chassis No. 15 that was powered by a 604 Crate engine, remarked that he was surprised by Marlar’s appearance to his outside.
“It’s just a bad racing deal in my opinion,” said Williams, who entered his first North-South 100 weekend since 2019. “I mean, me and the three cars I was running with, we was all battling for position and running that same line the whole race.
“There was no intent there at all, and I feel bad for Marlar. I wish it never happened. I don’t think it’s either one of our faults. Just a bad racing deal. I wasn’t planning on coming up any higher. There just wasn’t enough room. If I knew he was there, I’d have even moved down and given him another lane.
“It’s a bad deal for Mikey,” he added. ”I hate it for Marlar. I’ve never done anything like that. I just didn’t know he was there until he got into the right quarter(panel) and it was too late to move down after that. I hate it ended his night that way. If I knew he was there, I’d have stayed down. I just didn’t even hear him.”
Williams, 55, said Engle asked him to run his Crate car because “he knew there wasn’t going to be about a lot of cars and we was hoping (the surface) would be slick.” But the Florence conditions remained fast throughout the night, making Williams’s horsepower disadvantage even more pronounced. He still wasn’t thinking that the leader would be ready to lap him five laps after a restart.
“I mean, in the heat races we ran eight laps and didn’t get lapped, so I mean, I was thinking we still had a little more time,” said Williams, who started racing in 2000 and was a Florence regular until selling his equipment a few years ago. “I know we was about 10 to 15 laps in or something. I knew they was coming at some point, but I just never did hear him. Usually you can hear them. Like (Thursday) night, when all them leaders pulled up beside me, I could hear them and I let off the gas and let them all go.”
Williams mentioned that he had been looking up at the starter’s stand for the move-over flag, but the Lucas Oil Series doesn’t use one. He mused that perhaps the race director should warn slower cars like him on the one-way radio that the leaders are approaching.
“Definitely wouldn't hurt, but I think some drivers don’t want to hear any radio noise during the race,” said Williams, whose last competitive action was last year in a Crate Late Models at Florence and Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway. “But, I mean, if I was the leader of the race, I think it would be great if they’d say (to slower cars), ‘Hey, the leader's coming behind you, wherever you are, move over or hold your line.’ Just so you know, because we have no mirrors.”
Marlar’s stance on the matter was that while drivers “got to learn somewhere,” some responsibility needs to be taken from the individual competitor to not end up playing a role in the outcome.
“It ain’t nothing personal against that guy,” Marlar said. “I don’t even know who drives the car. I don’t know him. He may be the greatest guy in the world. I don’t know.”
What Marlar wanted to point out in general is that when competitors are clearly a couple seconds off the pace in a high-level Dirt Late Model event, he would prefer that they race in a division that’s more suited to their speed.
“Dirt Late Model racing’s become the cool thing,” Marlar said. “And unfortunately, these guys don’t want to run a class that they belong in. They want to get out there with the fastest guys in the country.
“It’s a bummer that this person don’t have a car as fast as that person. But, you know, there’s a class for that. My dad drives in a (lower) class. My brother drives in a class. You know what I mean?
“I’m sitting over here with a million-dollar team. But I raced in every local class there is on my way to this million-dollar team. And I didn’t graduate, I never started the next class, until I was kicking ass in the class before. That’s how I did it all the way up.
“So I can say what I’m saying. I ran a car when I first started racing — my first car was, you took the windows out of it and put a rollcage in it. I’ve ran all the classes, and if you’re two seconds off the pace … not everybody understands that, that’s why Lucas and WoO and all the series should have some deeper guidelines for that.”
Marlar recalled when he ran the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series event at the dirt-covered Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and he had a simple objective.
“My No. 1 goal was, don’t wreck the guy that has a sponsor paying him $300,000,” Marlar said. “Just don’t do nothing dumb. My biggest emphasis was, I’m in a start-and-park car. Let’s make the best of this. And, you know, I had a flat with two to go, but everything was going good, I was staying out of trouble.”
Standing inside his trailer, Marlar looked back on his frustrating Friday at Florence as his crew was outside hammering out bodywork, repairing the left-front A-frame and replacing the broken left-front shock, among other damage.
“The $6,000 I probably would have won, and the $3,000 worth of s--- tore up, so that’s a $9,000 deal right there,” Marlar said. “And there’s the late night the guys will have now fixing everything, and whatever setback we have for tomorrow, although maybe we’ll be lucky enough to hit the invert right.”
In fact, the 19th-place finish, combined with a third-place run in a Thursday’s semifeature, earned Marlar a points total that will start him from the pole position in Saturday’s sixth heat race. He’ll have a shot to recover from the lapped-traffic tangle as he chases an elusive victory in the North-South 100, a race that since 2004 he’s entered every year but two (2005 and ’18) and started 13 times with a top finish of third in ’15.
