If there were any questions on if NASCAR’s current championship format produces the series’ best champions, Ty Majeski stomped that notion out of mind following a dominant performance in Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Phoenix Raceway.
Piloting his No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford, Majeski was in a different zip code from the drop of the green flag as he led a whopping 132 of the 150 laps at Phoenix en route to his first career Truck Series championship.
The Wisconsin-based asphalt late model driver had never won a title in one of NASCAR’s top three divisions.
Majeski had only reached the Championship 4 in the Truck Series one time prior to this weekend. In fact, 2024 was Majeski’s third full-time season.
However, at 30 years old, Majeski solidified his name in the NASCAR history books.
“It means a ton,” Majeski beamed in victory lane. “Looking at the sport as a whole from the outside you don’t realize how hard it is to get these opportunities and how hard it is to not only win races or find a good opportunity, but become a champion. This is surreal. I’ve put my whole life into this.
“I’ve put a lot of hard hours driving through the night to make it to races and then get back to work at ThorSport the next morning and all of that work paid off tonight. Thank you to Joe Shear (crew chief). He’s one bad dude. I love that guy to death. Man, this thing was on point tonight.”
Notably, Majeski also won the inaugural ASA STARS National Tour championship last season.
For Majeski, his confidence in Friday night’s race came on Thursday at the drop of the green flag for the series’ lone practice session.
“I knew yesterday. I was so relaxed,” Majeski explained. “We unloaded top of the boards and I knew we were gonna have a truck to beat tonight. We just had to execute every single restart, and I felt like I did that. I put a lot of emphasis on that coming into this race.
“A lot of times this race is won and lost on restarts and thankfully we had a little bit of a long run. Those last 20 laps or so were the longest of my career.
“A huge thank you to all of our partners – Road Ranger, Soda Sense, Curb Records, Duke and Rhonda Thorson, Ali Thorson. Everything that they do they’ve given us so many tools to go out and win championships like this and thankfully we were able to execute for them tonight.”
As a short track racer from the midwest, Majeski’s journey certainly wasn’t easy. After part-time stints in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2017-’18, 20 starts the following three seasons in the Truck Series eventually led to a full-time ride with ThorSport in 2022. The duo haven’t looked back since.
“It’s possible. You just need to find a way to set yourself apart from everybody else,” Majeski said. “I did that by working in the shop. I started as an engineer at ThorSport in 2021 with three or four races. I didn’t know what it was gonna turn into and now we’re champions.”