After the 46-year-old driver from Winfield, Tenn., completed his run to a race-record $50,000 top prize in Saturday night’s 45th annual Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned event at Brownstown Speedway, he admitted that the double whammy had him feeling some emotions.

“They’re running high,” Marlar said in victory lane, his voice cracking a bit and his eyes tearing up slightly. “It’s been trying (this year) for sure. I love my (crew) guys. They’re my family, and it’s been rough. I don’t get that emotional, but man, we’ve been through it.”

Marlar’s first full campaign driving for Greg Bruening’s Skyline Motorsports has had its high moments — including his only previous Lucas Oil Series triumph this season on Feb. 24 at Golden Isles Speedway near Brunswick, Ga. — but he’s never quite felt he’s gotten in a rhythm. And for the past several months he’s experienced a seemingly endless series of misfortunes on and off the track, leaving him beaten down and at wit’s end.

The weekend at Brownstown helped Marlar turn the page. He finished second in Friday’s 40-lap C.J. Rayburn Memorial and was even better on Saturday, setting overall fast time, winning a heat and then coming off the outside pole to lead laps 1-5 before regaining the lead from Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., on lap 48 of the feature en route to a downright satisfying victory.

Marlar turned back several late-race challenges from Friday winner Ricky Thornton Jr. to beat the 34-year-old standout from Chandler, Ariz., by 0.967 of a second.

Pierce, 27, settled for a third-place finish after leading laps 6-47. Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., placed fourth, third-starter Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., was fifth and Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, finished sixth.

Thornton ended the weekend — the third and fourth points races of the five-race Big River Steel Chase for the Championship playoff — leading the Lucas Oil Series standings by 50 points over Davenport and Moran and 165 points over McCreadie. The Big Four battle concludes with the $200,000 champion being determined in Oct. 18-19’s Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.

Marlar’s struggles this season prevented him from cracking the Big Four playoff, but he made a major statement with his Jackson 100 performance. He was worried after Pierce overtook him for the lead that the quarter-mile oval’s surface “was gonna clean up pretty fast” and dash his hopes of regaining the top spot from Dirt Late Model racing’s No. 1-ranked driver, but he surged past Pierce on the inside of turn one on lap 48 and never looked back.

Thornton, who started sixth and reached second when he passed Pierce on lap 53, was the driver who found himself hampered by a track that turned one-lane around the bottom during the race’s second half.

“There at the end it got one lane so I had it easy,” Marlar said. “I was loving that.”

Thornton had no option but to cool his jets behind Marlar’s Longhorn Chassis and bring his Koehler Motorsports Longhorn home second.

“Probably the only thing is, I should’ve got up on the wheel in qualifying and qualified a little better (to start higher in the feature),” Thornton said. “Other than that, I felt like we ran the best race we could’ve run. There were a couple shots I could’ve ran Mikey over for the lead, but I know he wouldn’t race me that way so we settle for second.

“Really good weekend for us,” he added. “Obviously you wanna win, but we’ll carry a little momentum into Eldora next week. I feel like we’ve got a little more balance (with the car) that we’ve been looking for.”

Marlar spoke afterward about the joy he gets from battling with the new generation of drivers.

“I’m getting to be the old guy in the crowd, but them young kids make me better all the time still,” Marlar said. “I enjoy racing with Bobby and Ricky and Devin and Jonathan … a lot of the guys on the tour. It’s been a fun year. I ain’t had all the wins I wanted to have, but it’s been a fun tour. I love racing with the Lucas guys.”

Marlar, who is sixth in the Lucas Oil Series points standings, was equally proud to win the Jackson 100 for the first time in 13 career feature starts and snap out of his slump.

“It’s one I’ve always wanted to win,” Marlar said of the Jackson 100, a race that he finished among the top five on four previous occasions (topped by a runner-up finish in 2015). “Last year I was really good and I had that flat. I got to second and was on (eventual winner) Ricky (Thornton Jr.) pretty decent there and had that flat and let it get away.

“These crown jewels mean a lot to, because, you know, I’m on the back side of my career, so every one you don’t get is the one you’re never gonna get. So it’s nice to knock these things out. I got me a little list I wanna get.”

Marlar added that he’s pleased “to get some results and turn that corner and hopefully get out of the year here with some momentum and not be going into the winter the way we’ve been doing.”

“So we finally got us a good one here,” he said. “I’ve changed everything, including the steering wheel — I even put a different steering wheel on (for the weekend), so maybe that’s it. It didn’t hurt nothing.”

Pierce’s third-place finish was his worst in the 10 races paying $50,000-or-more to-win that he’s entered this season. He had six victories and three second-place runs in such events before the Jackson 100.

The defending World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series champion remarked that Saturday’s track surface was too slow and slick to create much action.

“I really like to race a race here where it’s got some character in the racetrack — maybe a top, maybe a cushion,” said Pierce, who won the Jackson 100 in 2018. “I mean, we ran a hundred laps barely on the gas. Me and Marlar had a pretty good race for a little bit and Ricky caught Marlar in the rubber, but besides that it was kind of a snoozer.

“Maybe they’ll learn, get better for the future. We love that it’s a great racetrack, great facility here in Indiana. Just gotta get a little more character so we can race around.”

The race was slowed by two caution flags. The first came on the original start when Boom Briggs spun in turn four, and on lap 42 Matt Boknecht stopped off turn four.

Feature lineup

Row 1: Garrett Alberson, Mike Marlar
Row 2: Jonathan Davenport, Bobby Pierce
Row 3: Tim McCreadie, Ricky Thornton Jr.
Row 4: Adam Stricker, Dennis Erb Jr.
Row 5: Brandon Sheppard, Devin Moran
Row 6: Clay Harris, Drake Troutman
Row 7: Jimmy Owens, Max Blair
Row 8: Devin Gilpin, Dave Hess Jr.
Row 9: Carson Ferguson, Daulton Wilson
Row 10: Tanner English, Tristan Chamberlain
Row 11: Nick Hoffman, Matt Boknecht
Row 12: Hudson O’Neal, Ross Robinson
Row 13: Boom Briggs, Brenden Smith
Row 14: Cory Lawler