PORT ROYAL, Pa. (Aug. 18) — Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., had no special plan in mind to deal with the formidable driver starting directly in front of him when the 40-lap World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series feature began Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway.

For Marlar, overtaking defending WoO champion Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., would be a simple matter of performance.

“Nowadays, you just gotta be faster,” said Marlar, who started fourth in the A-main, right behind the outside polesitting Sheppard. “You just gotta have a faster car than the next guy because he’s gonna drive his as fast as it’ll go and I’m gonna drive mine as fast as it’ll go, so I gotta have a faster piece than he does if I’m gonna outrun him.”

Marlar, 40, possessed that vehicle in his first-ever start at the half-mile Port Royal oval. He steered his Ronnie Delk-owned XR1 Rocket car past Sheppard for second place at the race’s initial, grabbed the lead from polesitter Ross Robinson of Georgetown, Del., on lap five and went on pace the remainder of the distance for a $10,000 victory.

While Sheppard did catch and dive underneath Marlar through turns one and two on lap 31, Marlar turned back that bid and pulled away from the 25-year-old pilot of the Rocket Chassis house car following caution flags on laps 33 and 36 to beat B-Shepp by 1.654 seconds for his fifth WoO triumph of 2018.

“We definitely had a good car tonight. It was tuned in,” said Marlar, who registered his seventh career win on the WoO circuit. “I went around there faster than anybody else ever has in qualifying (setting a new track record in time trials), then I won a heat and won the feature. I can’t ask for a better night than that.”

Sheppard survived a stout final-lap threat from Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, to finish second, nipping the 10th-starting Moran’s Tye Twarog-owned mount at the checkered flag by a mere 0.230 of a second. Jason Covert of York Haven, Pa., who grew up attending Port Royal’s races on a weekly basis, earned hard-charger status with his march from the 16th starting spot to a fourth-place finish in the Cameron-Mann Motorsports No. 72 and Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, completed a sweep of the top-five spots by drivers in XR1 Rocket Chassis with a fifth-place finish after running as high as third.

WoO points leader Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., climbed as high as fourth from the ninth starting spot but settled for a sixth-place finish, cutting his edge in the standings to 20 points over Marlar and 32 points over Sheppard.

Marlar appeared to be in firm control of the race for most of the 36 laps he spent in the lead, but he did experience some anxious moments late in the distance. A miscue he made while working lapped traffic resulted in minor damage to his car that caused him to slow, allowing Sheppard to quickly erase his half-straightaway deficit and make his lap-31 bid for the top spot.

“Later in the race I come up on a lapped car there,” Marlar related. “He went down the backstraightaway kind of in the middle and I thought he was just gonna go in (turn three) in the middle so I committed to the outside. Then he slid up to the cushion in front of me. He didn’t do a thing in the world wrong; he just took my air (off the nose). Even though I was back three or four cars (lengths), he took that air and my nose just shoved and I got up into the cushion.

“I climbed up on the berm, and what happened was … I didn’t know this at the time, but it bent my bumper down. So the whole rest of the race — man, I was, like, having to three-wheel brake it, throw it off in the corner sideways and everything in the world because, two or three different times, it would just hit the bumper and just skid on the bumper into the corner.

“When (Sheppard’s) on your butt like that, you can’t afford to make a mistake to find out what you need to do better (to compensate for the bent bumper),” he added. “I made a couple bobbles and he about passed me, but there at the end I kind of figured out what was wrong and drove better.”

The pair of late caution flags, on laps 33 and 36, provided Marlar a breather to consider his driving strategy for the final circuits. He made the right changes to keep Sheppard at bay.

“I stopped there (in turn four during a caution period) and asked the officials what was wrong and they didn’t really see anything, but I knew my bumper was bent,” Marlar said. “So there at the end of the race I just kind of picked up the gas, let the front end settle and then, when I entered the corner, I throttled up and got the bumper back up in the air so it wouldn’t hit.

“It was really hard to drive at the end of the race, but we held on.”

Sheppard actually pulled ahead of Marlar momentarily exiting turn two on lap 31, but Marlar had enough room between Sheppard and the outside wall to rocket past B-Shepp off the corner.

“I practically stopped off the corner, pushing (on lap 31),” Marlar said. “I knew when I did that I was gonna be on defense in one and two. But you know, (Sheppard) raced me awesome and gave me room.

“It was definitely tight (off turn two). I don’t think you could’ve put a piece of paper in there, but we didn’t touch nothing.”

Sheppard acknowledged that he wasn’t willing to rub Marlar to pass him.

“I was alongside of Mikey a few times but I never really thought I had him cleared,” said Sheppard, who won last year's WoO A-main at Port Royal. “I didn’t want to rough anybody up too bad or anything.”

After being unable to keep pace with Marlar following the final restart, Sheppard found himself in a tense battle for second with the 23-year-old Moran. The two drivers exited turn four on the last circuit racing side-by-side.

“I seen Devin on the left side of me there coming across the checkered,” Sheppard said.

Moran, meanwhile, felt his last-ditch attempt to overtake Sheppard for runner-up money signaled how strong his car was at the end of the feature. He spent much of the distance racing hard for fourth with Madden until finally gaining the position for good on lap 32 and then slipping past Erb for third on the lap-33 restart.

“Starting 10th kind of hurt us because (the track) was so fast,” Moran said. “I wish we could’ve started further up front to see what we could’ve done with Mikey and Shepp. I found a line right there where I could run right through the middle to the bottom of three and four and I really could catch him, but it just took too long to find that line.”

The race’s five caution flags flew on the original start for Tim Smith Jr. of Long Hollow, Pa., who slowed after being involved in a turn-two scramble; lap eight for Mason Zeigler of Chalk Hill, Pa., spinning in turn one while battling for sixth place with fellow Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series regular Gregg Satterlee of Indiana, Pa.; lap 14 when Robinson, who led laps 1-4, slowed with damage sustained from his lap-13 slap of the wall in turns one and two while he was third; lap 33 when Dan Stone of Thompson, Pa., hit the tractor tire protecting an opening in the inside wall off turn two because two bolts in his steering wheel came loose; and lap 36 when Chase Junghans of Manhattan, Kan., slowed with a flat right-rear tire.

A red flag was also displayed on lap 11 when Bryan Bernheisel of Jonestown, Pa., barrel-rolled on the backstretch amid a multi-car accident. The crash began when Rick Eckert of York, Pa., slowed off turn four due to a broken driveshaft, collecting Austin Hubbard of Seaford, Del., Bernheisel and Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga.

Bernheisel was shoved into a flip but landed on all four wheels and wasn’t injured. Eckert and Hubbard also were eliminated in the wreck.

Notes: Marlar’s victory came in his second start in an XR1 Rocket car that he debuted Thursday night at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway. … Hot laps were scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., but shortly after the drivers' meeting was completed light-but-steady rain began to fall, delaying the start of action. Once the precipitation stopped, Late Models hit the track for hot laps at 8:25 p.m. … Light rain began falling again during the fourth heat race; after Kenny Moreland of Waldorf, Md., blew a right-rear tire and hit the wall between turns one and two to bring out a caution with one lap remaining, officials checkered the prelim to keep the show moving. The drizzle ended moments later. … The A-main was checkered at 12:41 a.m.