Mike Marlar has not competed on a national tour full time since 2024, when he finished 7th in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings. The 2018 World of Outlaws Late Model champion has instead run a successful pick-and-choose schedule defending home turf in and around Tennessee, while still seeking the challenge of racing the best of the best.

This year, Marlar has nine wins, 23 Top 5s, and 28 Top 10s in 67 events. He got his first win of the season in the middle of March when the World of Outlaws Late Models stopped in at Volunteer Speedway on March 13th. A little less than a month later, he went to victory lane at Ponderosa Speedway with the Northern Allstars Late Model Series. He returned to victory lane at Ponderosa a month later when the Spring Nationals arrived. In July, he won at Mudlick Valley with the Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series. At the end of July, he visited victory lane at Duck River Raceway Park when the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series was there.

August was Marlar’s hottest month of the year. He won a preliminary night race for the North/South 100 at Florence Speedway with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series to begin the month. He then swept a pair of Ultimate Heart of America Super Late Model Series races at Rockcastle Speedway and Richmond Raceway in Kentucky in the middle of the month. He finished off the month with a win at Smoky Mountain with the Hunt the Front series.

Mike Marlar. Photo by Event Horizon Photography.

While Marlar has not competed in a national tour full time, he is not ruling it out for 2027. He spoke about his plans with StockCarReport.com following Thursday night’s FloRacing Night in America Series race at Volunteer Speedway.

First, Marlar shared the status of his operation and whether or not he might attend World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, “My better motor’s getting freshened. So, if it gets back. They’re going to try to get it done for me. We don’t have a lot of equipment, honestly. We got two motors and didn’t have a spare car. Now, we got a spare car. So we’ll have two race ready cars, basically.”

“But heck, we’re not racing a lot. Motors are so expensive, and we’re just trying to keep enough to go when we want to go and have good stuff when we go. So that’s kind of it.”

He then discussed what his plans might be for 2027, “When Ronnie [Delk] and I started our team back—. Me and him love racing together. I love racing with Ronnie. And we know we’re not going to be able to do a lot because Jared and Trey’s racing a little bit now. They deserve a shot. They’re going to be really good racers. Jared won a $10,000 crate race last week. And Trey won a 602 the first time he ever drove one. So them boys are going to be really good racers.”

“We don’t really have a big plan,” Marlar continued. “If some partners come in and wanted to do something with us, I would love to go out and get to race with Ronnie and have a good shot at going out on a tour. But one guy on a small business can’t afford racing on a tour, and two kids racing too. I give all I can give and the guys give all they can give. So, we’re trying to make it work. We do have some good help. We got Royal [Jones with Mesilla Valley Transportation], and Ed Petroff [of Petroff Towing], and then Craig Lindsey, and some guys involved. We couldn’t do what we’re even doing without them. If we can find the right help and the right situation, I’ll go out and run a series.”

“But I don’t want to be a field filler,” Marlar declared. “That’s what I feel like a little bit because I’ve not got to race a lot.”

“We were looking at stats this week and little Trey, he’s our analyzer, he was looking at them. He really thought that we had a good year by amount of races we ran and wins and this and that. But, heck, I’ve raced half it feels like what I normally do,” he continued, “It’s hard to compete with these guys at that level coming in and kind of halfway doing it.”

“If the right situation come along and we felt like we could be a legitimate contender with the right equipment and all the right help and everything else, we’d probably jump on there and do it,” Marlar reiterated. “But if that don’t happen, we’ll just race together and do what we do and try to win when we win.”

When asked if he might run a regional tour instead, Marlar responded, “That’s a tricky question. I’m kind of an all-or-nothing guy. I want to race the—. Hunt the Front has great guys, it wouldn’t be easy to win that by no means. But I want to be on a national tour. If I’m going to do a tour I want to be on a national tour. And if I can’t do a national tour, I’ll just stay around the house, and sharpen my knife, and load up my bullets, and try to be a national winner when they come to town. So we’ll just try to do that.”

“I want to race the best people and stay relevant as long as I can racing the best people. This year we got to win with Lucas. We got to win with World of Outlaws, Lucas, Hunt the Front. So we’ve got to win a little bit with the best series. But I want to race those best guys,” Marlar concluded. “If I can’t do that, I’ll race them when I can, but I’d like to be able to do it more and be able to have a better shot, be tuned up a little bit.”

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