BRANDON, S.D. (July 19) — Somehow, someway, Mike Marlar finished sixth in Sunday’s Silver Dollar Nationals at Huset’s Speedway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. 

All five races on the Lucas Oil Series this week at Eagle (Neb.) Raceway; Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, and Huset’s saw the Winfield, Tenn., veteran get caught up someone else’s mess. Even Saturday’s 80-lap finale tripped up the 46-year-old, who spun out of 13th on lap 32.

But “I feel like we overcame a mountain this week to get good results,” Marlar said after driving from the tail of the field to his best finish of the five-race week over the final 48 laps.

Marlar’s hell-bent week started Monday at Eagle when his hood popped off and covered the view from his dashboard, a race he was running fifth at the time but couldn’t continue. Tuesday at Shelby County he tangled with eventual winner Hudson O’Neal battling for the lead in the heat race. Marlar took a provisional and finished 11th in the feature.

Another wreck Thursday at Huset’s (and 15th-place feature finish) prompted him to employ his backup for Friday to only wreck that, too, in a multicar pileup in the 40-lap feature that sent him walking dejectedly back to the pits. 

VIDEO: Marlar was involved in a heat race incident with Tyler Erb and Garrett Alberson on Thursday. 

Marlar went into Friday with the goal of “alright, let me not crash anything here.”

“Then we had a restart and all crashed. I had the thought under caution and wrecked on the restart,” Marlar said through a lighthearted laugh. “Just tight out there. Didn’t have enough cars to weed out the guys that are unexperienced. Just a lot of s--- happened. … I’m glad to have some kind of decent result here and move on.”

Marlar even barely held onto sixth in the waning laps Saturday, saying a run-in with Tim McCreadie late in the race broke his throttle spring and “something inside” the right-front shock. On top of that, Friday’s mangled race car has yet to be repaired.

“We’re still not done. We’re going to work out here until 3 or 4 a.m. again to get the car fixed last night that we didn’t get to work on,” Marlar said. “We haven’t touched the car yet. It never stops. But I love racing and when you get to drive a race car for a living, you can’t complain too much. You just work harder.”

Marlar’s also down on crew help as Cody Smith had to return to Tennessee on Monday to be with his father, Jimmy, who had open-heart surgery this week.

“Throw in a wreck everyday this week and down a team member, and it makes it rough,” said Marlar, who doesn’t quite know how his No. 157 Skyline Motorsports team will handle the coming days.

He could race almost everyday this week if he wanted. The XR Super Series is at Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer, Iowa, on Sunday and at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway on Tuesday and Wednesday. Then Wednesday’s Castrol FloRacing Night in America stop at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway is hard to turn down as well preluding Friday and Saturday’s Prairie Dirt Classic.

But Marlar is “so beat up right now that I really don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t want to race when there’s races. … Me, (crew members) Josh (Davis) and Jerry (Sprouse) are going to have to have a talk here tonight and figure out that, and figure out Cody’s situation with his dad, or if he can’t come back. If he’s going to be gone, it’s going to be really hard for us.

“But I’m proud of Josh and Jerry, and everything Stacy is doing. Poor ol’ Stacy. I ain’t too proud there when my wife is having to pop rivets, but we needed everything this week to get back out of the gutter. Proud of everybody here that supports me. Thankful I have (team owner) Greg Bruening’s support.”

Blair Nothdurft Close To Home

Blair Nothdurft was one of the few non-touring drivers to compete at this weekend’s Silver Dollar Nationals where 20 of the 25 entrants were either Lucas Oil Series campaigners or veteran national touring drivers Tyler Erb, Brandon Sheppard or Bobby Pierce.

Until his lap-62 spin out of 14th, the 23-year-old had a respectable run going for him 10 miles from his Renner, S.D., home.

“Really, my nose caught the berm and spun me around. I just got as low as I could,” Nothdurft said. “Then the other time, I caught the berm again and it pulled me to the infield and I was on top of the berm. Just trying to find all the traction you can get out there. I think my right-rear tire went away a little bit there.

“It was actually a really good night for us. If the race was 50 laps, we would’ve been top-10. But it was 80. We’ll chalk it up as a win with these guys and move on.”

Nothdurft, a former Repairable Vehicles.com Tri-State Series champion, ran eighth for the longest time until he slipped outside the top-10 on lap 54. But his consolation is that he and 12th-finishing Chad Simpson of Mount Vernon, Iowa — a winner of multiple regional touring titles — were the two drivers that best represented the Midwest region. Nothdurft's first Silver Dollar Nationals main event marked the longest race of his career at 80 laps, topping the 75-lap Gopher 50 at Minnesota’s Deer Creek Speedway two weeks ago.

“The (modest) car count kind of helped, but I think we would’ve made the A-main no matter what,” Nothdurft said. “We were pretty good this weekend.”

Living so close to Huset’s, Nothdurft said 25 cars for this year’s Silver Dollar Nationals is “about what I expected.”

“I was just hoping for a full field. We’re just not in Late Model world,” he said. “We’re six or seven hours from the next weekly Late Model track in Davenport. Maybe the Illinois border? You do have your Nebraska series, but that’s a touring series. Your closest weekly area would be the Illinois border. We’re just not in Late Model world up here. It’s sprint car world.”

But “besides the car count, it’s a good pretty good event” at the third-mile oval, Nothdurft added.

“Late Models aren’t as big as you think around here. But more people are getting to know (Late Models), getting adjusted to it,” Nothdurft said. “Last year to this year, there’s way more campers on the grounds than there were last year. That’s a plus. There are more people in the grandstands this year.”

Bill Leighton Wins Undercard

Nothing finally stood in the way between Bill Leighton and victory lane Sunday at Huset’s Speedway on the Malvern Bank West Series. The La Vista, Neb., driver had been snakebitten at the third-oval more times than he’d like, starting with last year when he wrecked out of the lead on the undercard of the Silver Dollar Nationals.

He then led the opening 15 laps of Wednesday’s Tri-State Series show until interloper Ricky Thornton Jr. stole the show. Thursday he started fifth and finished second on the Tri-State Series. And on Friday, he led laps 4-13 before tangling with a slower car in traffic.

“Yeah, last night was tough. I thought the car was better last night than it was tonight,” Leighton told pit reporter Ben Shelton. “Thought I had them covered last night, then unfortunate circumstances happened. Went back to the trailer for about an hour and got back to work to get ready for tonight.”

Leighton earned his second Malvern West win of 2024, adding to June 1’s series triumph at Off Road Speedway in Norfolk, Neb., and the 22nd tour win of his career. Leighton denied J.C. Wyman’s bid at ending a four-year victory slump on the Malvern Bank West Series, leading the final six laps of the 30-lap feature for the $5,053 payday.

“All the stuff’s that happened … I was leading the race last year and crashed on the back straightway,” Leighton said. “Ricky beat me on Wednesday and I got beat on Thursday, and last night happened. It’s been a long week, but my guys worked real hard.”

Silver Dollar Nationals Odds And Ends

Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., who finished 13th in the Lucas Oil portion of the Silver Dollar Nationals, said he was “off all weekend” at Huset’s Speedway. He pitted from 10th under a lap-44 caution period hoping a new right-rear tire on his Koehler Motorsports race machine would improve his chances. He gained five positions restarting 18th over the final 36 laps. … Carson Ferguson of Lincolnton, N.C., had a top-10 run going until breaking his left-rear shock “having too much fun on the cushion” thwarted him from the ninth position: “I never run the top, so the car was trying to get me back sane,” the 22nd-finishing Ferguson said in jest. … Jupiter, Fla.’s Clay Harris, the race’s first retiree, broke a power steering line after 11 laps. The Lucas Oil Series rookie plans to pick up a new race car from Rocket Chassis and pair of engines from Andy Durham on the way home. Harris hopes to be back in action for Aug. 2-3’s Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series programs at Duck River Raceway Park in Wheel, Tenn. … Drake Troutman of Hyndman, Pa., retired after 65 laps with a broken right-rear brakeline.