FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. — In his second full-time season with the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models, Tyler Bruening is taking the lessons he’s learned from his rookie season to make his best chance at a championship in 2024.
The Decorah, Iowa, driver won Rookie of the Year honors in 2021 after finishing third in the title hunt, including 12 top-five’s and 27 top-10 finishes.
Entering the Dairyland Showdown at Mississippi Thunder Speedway, Bruening sits fifth in the 2024 series standings — 82 points back from current leader Brandon Sheppard.
Though he has yet to park his late model in victory lane with the series, Bruening is not worried about when that time will come. Instead, his focus is to keep up the pace with the frontrunners of the series so he can consistently battle for the championship throughout the next seven months.
“The main thing to take away is about the consistency and realistic goals,” Bruening said. “Don’t get so wrapped up in trying to get the first win, instead think about good results every time you hit the track.
“Falling back on a lot of my rookie year (to 2024) was that we just take the night as they come by battling for top-five’s and top-10s and the wins will come when they do.
“You can’t get bogged down about when that win is gonna come and forget that we’re in a points championship battle and we’re trying to get through the year.”
Piloting his family-owned Skyline Motorsports No. 16, Bruening credits the evolution of where he and his dad, Greg Bruening, started the team and how the expansion of the team’s fleet has improved in time with 2018 series champion Mike Marlar joining the team in late 2023.
“Like a lot of kids in this sport, I grew up going to the race track and seeing my dad race,” Bruening said. “He drove stock cars then worked his way up to the Late Model so when it became time for me to jump in, he jumped out and Skyline was formed.
“Really, Skyline is like a family operation because me and my dad can go race and make the deal bigger, and it’s been great for us. (Mike Marlar) has been a really good asset for the team and helping us progress further than where we were.”
When returning to a track like Mississippi Thunder Speedway, Bruening likes to keep an open mind in preparing for most of the tracks on the schedule so that he can adjust to what will speed up his No. 16 Longhorn Chassis.
“I honestly don’t know because I have an open mind,” Bruening said. “A lot of the places we’ve gone to, it’s only been once or twice. So we just got to roll in, start the night fast while having realistic expectations, have a good run and solid adjustments and we’ll be all good.”