BRISTOL, Tenn: Ty Majeski knew coming into the Round of 8 at Bristol Motor Speedway that he would have to get stage points and most likely a win to move into the Round of 4.
After incurring a Level 2 penalty at the Milwaukee Mile, Majeski would have to recover from a points penalty in the Round of 8 and race his way into the next Round.
Entering Bristol seeded in the sixth position and six points below the cut line, he would need a good, if not perfect, run for the ThorSport Racing at The Last Great Colosseum.
Finishing both practice and qualifying for the UNOH200 in the fourth position, Majeski was in a perfect place to gain valuable points to move up in the Playoff standings.
With only one caution in the opening stage, the Seymour, Wisc. native would finish Stage 1 in third, gaining eight valuable stage points.
The ThorSport Racing driver would be told by his crew chief Ron Calhoun, “We are in a real good spot here. Save and manage your stuff.”
However, the second stage would not be so kind to the No. 98 Road Ranger Ford F-150 driver.
A long-green flag run would keep Majeski near the front of the field. Still, he would find trouble late in the stage when he would make contact with eventual race winner Corey Heim when a lapped truck impeded his position and pushed him up into the No. 11 Toyota, which cut down Majeski’s tire on Lap 107.
With two laps to go in the stage, Majeski would nurse his wounded truck to the Stage finish, but race leader Christian Eckes would pass him in the process. On the flip side, after finishing Stage 2 in the 30th position, Majeski would be the first truck one lap down, so he would receive the free pass.
“We were in a bad position with a lapped truck,” explained Majeski after the race. “He was kind of going and making decent time on the bottom, and the 11 pinned me, and I just didn’t anticipate how much he was going to lift going in the corner. I got in the brake hard and had to in order to prevent from hitting him and got into the 11.”
Pitting on Lap 119, Majeski comes to pit road for a set of Goodyear tires, fuel, and an adjustment, but he would have to come back to pit road to pull some of the sheet metal away from the front right tire of his truck and would join the field at the back of the field for pitting on a closed pit road.
Starting stage 3 from the rear of the field, Majeski would get mired behind Zane Smith’s truck and finally pass him on Lap 172.
From that point on, the determined driver would creep his way forward and stay ahead of race winner Heim, making up 11 positions in the final 28 laps of the race and finishing 19th at the checkered flag.
“This track is honestly just really terrible,” added Majeski after the race. “With the PJ1 on the bottom, it’s so dominant. I mean, I’m three or four-tenths faster than the guys in the back, and you just can’t go anywhere.”
Frustrated by the PJ1 on the track, Majeski stated. “In my opinion, it’s a terrible product on such a great racetrack. I just wish we could pass and move around. You like to have options as a driver, and I feel like the way this track is, it doesn’t give us options.”
Digging himself deeper in the playoff standings, Majeski dropped two positions in the Round of eight – to the eighth seed overall and 22 points below the cutline, putting him and his
No. 98 ThorSport team in a vulnerable position heading to Talladega Superspeedway on Sept. 30.
“We won Homestead last year. Talladega, anybody can win there, so I don’t know,” sounded Majeski of the remaining two races in the Round of 8. “I’m not a huge fan of the plate (Talladega) races, but at the end of the day, we have a chance to win there. If we repeat at Homestead again, we’re in the final four, so a lot to look forward to.”
Even with the race ending sourly, Majeski stayed focused on moving forward.
We have a lot of good things going on within our race team, so we’ll keep our heads down and keep digging.”
The NASCAR CRATSMAN Truck Series returns to the track after a weekend off for the Love’s RV Stop 250 at the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway on Sat., Sept. 30 at 1:00 p.m. ET.
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