With the plans on running the full MLRA schedule, Marrant also explains how important seat time will be when it comes to contending for top fives and victories. “Our struggles from last year were kind of part of the decision on trying to run the whole schedule. We need to race more, and I mean we’re so far behind on experience and it’s hard to gain experience when your racing 22 times a year and everybody you’re racing against is racing 45 or 50 nights. We really don’t have a comfort, so the new car is not going to be that different for us. We’re just hoping that we can get out there and race more, because you’re not going to get experience from just staying home.”
“These cars have got so advanced and it’s really hard on the super late model level to keep up with everything that’s going on without an engineer or a crew chief or someone you know that’s just in it all the time. I mean me and Michael, we just come home on Saturday night, he washes the car on Sunday and we go back to work on Monday and that makes it really hard for us. We just gotta race more, we need laps, so that’s what were going to try to do this year with planning on running the whole schedule.”
In 2023 Marrant competed in only 12 MLRA events and logged just one top ten, that being an 8th place at the Moberly Motorsports Park in Moberly, MO. His best season came just one year prior when he logged a pair of MLRA top five runs including a 3rd place podium run in his back yard at the Lakeside Speedway.
It’s tracks like Lakeside and Lucas Oil Speedway that have him excited to get this seasons MLRA schedule underway. “It’s a big help going to a track you’re familiar with, because when you’re traveling, you’re trying to learn the car, trying to learn the set-up, and then you throw on top of it a new track that I’ve never been to, or I’ve been to once. I mean yeah, that makes it hard. It makes a huge difference when I’m already comfortable at the track that were going to and I already know the track. That makes it easier on us to just focus on learning the car and set-up and keeping up with the track, and I’m not having to learn the track as we go.”
With the 2023 season of struggles now behind them, Marrant is optimistic he can get the team back to their winning ways once again. “I mean its crazy to even say after last year, but we’ve had multiple top fives and a quick time, so I know we’re capable of doing it if we can just put it all together. This year we’re really trying to get it in victory lane and that’s saying a lot, but I mean I don’t see why we couldn’t do it if we get the new car and motor figured out. And like I said, racing more isn’t going to do anything but help us get faster.” |