Hustling to keep up with Ricky Thornton Jr.’s blazing pace, Mike Marlar felt like he was in a real-life game of Mario Kart during Sunday's Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Port Royal Speedway.

For starters, giving chase kept Marlar as entertained as a child immersed in a video game — “That was awesome. This racetrack is badass,” he said — but also because he treated the half-mile oval’s top side in turns one and two like a Mario Cart Dash Mushroom. Each time he’d hit it right, his No. 157 machine blasted down the backstretch with a little more velocity as he hunted down Thornton in the 40-lap main event.

“That’s how it is,” Marlar said comparing Sunday’s feature to the Nintendo 64 classic. “It’s really a cool track. It’s very technical. You can run all over it and find different lines. Really, I love coming here. … We had an awesome race.

“Yeah, (the top) was there if you wanted to do it. But it could go way wrong. Yeah, there’s a little speed there if you hit it just right, and full commitment, you know? It can slingshot you down the straightaway.”

Marlar’s runner-up finish, of course, isn’t the result he was looking for on Sunday. Hitting his stride before the progressively busier month of May, the Winfield, Tenn., driver realistically expects to win each time he unloads. But the 46-year-old can live with a second-place run to the 33-year-old Thornton, the reigning Driver of the Year who looked the part of those highest honors on Sunday.

“For sure. He’s on it every lap,” Marlar said. “It’s fun. I’ve said it before: These young guys are keeping me young, you know? I welcome the challenge.”

Keeping Thornton honest throughout the 40-lap feature is the positive takeaway for Marlar from the weekend that started with a nonfactor 18th-place run Friday at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway. On Sunday, he reverted back to the very car he swept April 5-6’s Spring Thaw with at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn., and that made an immediate difference.

Marlar employed a different car on Friday, but on Sunday switched to the car he has utmost confidence in that led to him earning Group B fast time.

“We got something we’re fighting there,” Marlar said. “And I think we figured out how to eliminate it. We’re going to do that. I was working on my car today and figured out a few things that was wrong that I had on my other car that I’ve been struggling with. I think we can get that better and go forward with that. It’s just tough, you know? We qualified the other day like two-tenths off, just a steady two-tenths all night.

“It’s hard to figure out where to get that at (to make up the deficit). We weren’t horrible … but it’s nice to come out of here on a high note. It’s the best way to cap the weekend, for sure.”