BRISTOL, Tenn. – Ford Performance prospect Ty Majeski will make his first NASCAR Xfinity Series start of the season in Saturday afternoon’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, and while the short track ace hasn’t been in an Xfinity car much, he’s hoping a productive day in Thunder Valley leads to a career-best outing.
“First of all, I’m just very thankful for the opportunity everyone at Roush Fenway and Ford Performance has given to me and Austin (Cindric) and Chase (Briscoe) as well, just an opportunity to prove ourselves in this series. My mentality is just to take it as another race. I’ve been racing late models for a long, long time and I’ve won quite a few races and I just take this as just another race.
I think that’s the mentality you’ve got to have. You’ve got to go in with an open mind, just trying to learn everything I can.”
In three Xfinity starts last season, Majeski showed promise in qualifying –putting his No. 60 Ford Fusion inside the top-10 for both Iowa Speedway races and the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
While Iowa bagged mixed results, Majeski left his first intermediate track with a top-10 finish and something to build on during the off-season studies and his anticipated 12-race schedule with Roush Fenway Racing in 2018.
Saturday, though is Bristol, a rough, ragged and fast half-mile oval where the tiniest mistake could lead to ultimate failure.
To prepare himself for his third career Xfinity short track race, Majeski has devoted much of his recent time to intense Bristol studying.
“I did a lot of studying and preparation coming into Bristol,” added Majeski. “I watched the last two Xfinity races here multiple times and watched Dartfish in qualifying and leaning on Ricky as well.
“He’s always open to answering any questions that I have, so just leaning on my resources and trying to be as prepared as possible.”
In the first practice session on Friday, Majeski’s No. 60 Sunny D Ford Fusion posted the 19th fastest lap – but the NASCAR Next driver isn’t focused on how fast they are in practice or not even necessarily where they qualify – but where they finish on Saturday afternoon.
And to help him with that, Majeski insisted he must give the proper feedback to crew chief Mike Kelley to keep the handling of his Ford pointed in the right direction.
“The biggest thing is to just put a whole weekend together and a whole race together,” noted Majeski who was 14th quickest in final practice. “I felt like we had spurts of being able to maybe run in the top five at Homestead early on and we just didn’t keep up with the race track as the sun went down and as the track got rubbered up.
“That’s something I’m gonna get better at is knowing where the car needs to be in the beginning of the race to be good at the end of the race.
“With four XFINITY races and my first one ending short, it’s been a learning curve for me just to know what kind of feedback to give to Mike to make sure the car is good at the end of the race.
“That’s something we’re gonna build on for sure, and something we’ve been thinking about coming into this weekend and hopefully we can put those things that I learned the past three races and make for a good fourth here.”
Following Bristol, Majeski’s remaining 11 scheduled Xfinity races include: Talladega, Dover, Charlotte, Iowa, Kentucky, Road America, Richmond, Charlotte, Kansas, Texas and Phoenix.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
