QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. (Jan. 16) — During a Keyser Manufacturing Wild West Shootout in which three national touring series drivers have effectively controlled the headlines, Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., is a big name who has found it difficult to break into the limelight.

Marlar certainly hasn’t been an also-ran through five of six miniseries programs at FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway. In fact, he could make the argument that he’s been the fourth-ranked entrant behind feature winners Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, and Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz.

Nevertheless, Marlar has just been lacking that mix of speed and good fortune to outshine the Big Three.

“I haven’t been that great,” Marlar said after finishing seventh in Saturday night’s 40-lap Super Late Model feature. “But I haven’t really had anything work for me either.”

Indeed, Marlar, who turns 43 on Jan. 30, has shown consistent strength with his Ronnie Delk-owned XR1 Rocket car — he’s recorded two top-fives (third on Jan. 10, fourth on Wednesday) and four top 10s — but hasn’t had the stars align for him at a 3/8-mile oval which has proven so tricky to master that the slightest hiccup can dive-bomb a promising evening.

“Every night I’ve won a heat I’ve drawn a six, and the other nights I’ve run second in the heats and started 10th or 12th,” Marlar said, noting that his starting positions have made it harder for him to overcome a track surface that has taken rubber in several features. “And tonight, when they watered the track there (before the feature) and then they finally got all the crumbs blew off where you could move around a little bit, the race is 10 laps from over.

“It’s been a little bit of a slow start out here. It ain’t like we’re horrible. We’re first or second every day in a heat race, and then in the features, the track hasn’t always been there and I haven’t really gotten any breaks on the restarts or anything going my way.”

And then there was Friday night, when Marlar had a “freak thing” happen on the first circuit of the 30-lap feature: his steering wheel came off in his hands, causing him to spin — fortunately without collecting any other cars — at the end of the homestretch after starting sixth.

“It was 100 percent my fault,” Marlar said. “I can feel (the steering wheel) click when I push it on there, and for whatever reason, I pushed it on and it didn’t click or I didn’t get it on all the way or whatever. I’m just glad I didn’t wreck anybody or tear anybody else’s car up. Luckily I didn’t hurt my own, either.

“When I went in turn one (on the opening lap), I knew something didn’t feel right with it. Then I went down the back straightaway and I could tell (the steering wheel) was kind of wobbly on the splines. I went through three and four trying to push it on, but it’s hard to do in these cars because of all the G-forces you get, so it came off leaving four. It went toward the outside wall, and I was on three-wheel brakes so I was able to use the brake pedal to guide it off the wall. Then when I felt like the coast was clear I locked the brakes up and spun it around down the front straightaway.

“I can tell you one thing — I was in a hurry to get stopped. I got real lucky there.”

Marlar still has one more shot to score his first WWS victory since 2018 — the year he won the miniseries points title — in Sunday’s $25,000-to-win finale. A checkered flag would certainly give him a confidence boost as he looks ahead to what might be his start of a 2021 assault on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series with the tour’s Jan. 22-23 opener at All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla.

“Honestly, there at the end of last year, I felt some struggles where I wasn’t really where I wanted to be with my car,” said Marlar, who is hoping to finalize some sponsorship “in the next day or two” that will allow him to follow the full Lucas Oil Series. “I don’t really know why that is. I don’t know if I’m just not making good decisions chassis-wise or what. I have a real good maintenance program with Josh (Davis) and Jerry (Sprouse), but all the chassis stuff is left up to me so I have to figure out what I’m missing.”

Mars finds footing

Jimmy Mars of Menomonie, Wis., decided something had to be done about his middling performance through the first four nights of the Wild West Shootout. So for Saturday’s program, he shook up his approach.

“I just wasn’t firing off very good the last few nights,” said Mars, who followed a DNQ in Jan. 9’s opener with finishes of sixth, eighth and 23rd. “I’ve been qualifying good, heat races not too bad, and then in the feature we’ve just been going the wrong direction. We said, ’That’s not working, so let’s go the other direction.’ ”

The 48-year-old veteran and five-time WWS feature winner combined with his crew — including his brother Chris and fellow Dirt Late Model racer and Mars Racing employee A.J. Diemel — to tune his yellow MB Customs car into a machine that carried him to his first top-five finish of the miniseries. He won a heat race and advanced from the sixth starting spot to place fourth, flashing under the checkered flag behind only WWS winners Tyler Erb, Jonathan Davenport and Ricky Thornton Jr.

While Mars couldn’t keep Thornton behind him to prevent the event’s Big Three from sweeping the podium — Thornton overtook Mars for third on lap 25 — his fourth-place run made him the best of the rest in the field.

“I just had to get my confidence going there at first,” said Mars, whose last WWS victory came in 2014 at USA Raceway in Tucson, Ariz. “Their stuff (the three winners) has been pretty good so they’re probably a little more confident on where to be on the track than I’ve been the last few nights, but I got my confidence up and was driving just a little bit different tonight.

“I could drive it way more aggressive in the feature starting out. It fired off good and I could be more aggressive right off the bat. You still start feeling tires shake a little bit and you’re like, ‘Ah, am I wrecking my tires to where I’m gonna keep getting slower and slower?’ so you kind of back-pedal a little, but my car felt pretty good.”

Mars was hoping to transfer the speed he found to his MB Customs customers racing in the WWS, including Rodney Sanders of Happy, Texas, Jason Feger of Bloomington, Ill., and Chris Simpson of Oxford, Iowa.

“Everybody has had kind of the same battles, but we let them know where I was at tonight to help make them more competitive,” said Mars, whose business has claimed 2021 WWS feature wins in the modified (with Sanders) and X-mod classes. “It’s a team effort so it’ll be good tomorrow.”

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Sunday showdown

When it comes to the Wild West Shootout’s Big Three, the difference between winning and losing is miniscule.

“It don’t take much,” Jonathan Davenport said after finishing second to Tyler Erb in Saturday night’s feature. “Everybody’s so close. It’s just one mess up by somebody else (that can determine the outcome).”

So it was in Saturday’s 40-lapper, which saw Davenport, 37, falter just enough while negotiating lapped traffic late in the distance to allow the 24-year-old Erb to snatch the lead and $5,000 triumph with a lap-37 slider through turns three and four.

“I threaded the needle again, I guess you could say,” a smiling Erb said after overtaking Davenport to register his second straight WWS victory.

While Davenport mourned his lost opportunity to score a third WWS win that would have assured him a $10,000 bonus and given him a shot at an even larger $25,000 bonus for winning four races, he conceded that Erb “just did a little better job than I did tonight.” But he was also looking ahead to Sunday’s big-money finale that, from all indications, has a good chance of boiling down to a one-for-the-road battle between J.D., Erb and Ricky Thornton Jr.

“I think us three, we’re definitely the class of the field and we’ve just been fighting it out (for wins) between us,” Davenport said, before adding that he and Erb can add the $10,000 bonus for three wins to their take if they capture Sunday’s schedule 50-lap feature.

“Now it’s 35-grand for me and Terbo tomorrow,” Davenport said, noting the cash both drivers will be chasing, “so I guess we’ll go at it.”