Marlys has been a race fan for many years watching her son Daryn race back at the old Bismarck Speedway trackânow a part of the Bismarck Landfill east of the city.When the club moved to the new Dacotah Speedway in 1990 Marlys offered her services to count laps, as the club needed dedicated volunteers that could handle a tough job that was crucial for scoring. Marlys not only took on the task, she became an expert quickly, as she was reliable and accurate.
A few years later the club was growing and an efficient secretary was needed to manage our financial affairs. Of course she said yes, and for a time she did double duty until the new electronic scoring system came out. Points still had to be calculated for a time, and lineups still had to be coordinated, so Marlys was there to do the job year after year. Her services to the track were so important it became clear when Marlys announced she wanted to ease into retirement that someone had to learn her job, and her experience would be difficult to replace.
In recent years some of those tasks have been given to others under her dedicated mentoring and the volunteers have all learned from the best. Marlys has also spent many hundreds of hours helping Curt Klein research racing history in the area. Her knowledge of racers from some of the earliest eras of racing in the area has been beneficial to the HOF Committee of which she serves, and, oh yes, she takes the notes for the meetings.
Marlys Schuler has given well over 30 years of her life to the sport of racing in multiple capacities so many of us never see, but are crucial to making a race, and racing in general, successful. She will be honored for her work on November 2, 2019 when she is inducted into the Bismarck-Mandan Stock Car Association Hall of Fame under the Foundation Builder category.
Written by John Gartner
Researched by Curt Klein