RICHMOND, Va. — Ty Majeski took the lead on a restart with eight laps remaining in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular-season finale Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway to hoist his second consecutive race trophy.
Majeski’s No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford led Christian Eckes’ No. 19 Chevy across the finish line by a slight .936 seconds to earn the win and vindicate a gut-wrenching loss at the 0.75-mile Richmond track from a year ago when he dominated the race only to lose the lead with four laps remaining.Â
That tough loss was still very much on the mind of the 29-year-old Wisconsin native this weekend. And he nearly gave this one away too after receiving a pit road penalty when a tire got loose on his first pit stop during the Stage One break.
“This feels good, we’ve had great ThorSport trucks here at Richmond the last two years, but found different ways to lose them (races) and tried to do that again tonight,” said Majeski, who now has five career wins in the series.
“We really need to clean that stuff up.”
Eckes, driver of the No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet officially claimed the regular season championship in winning Saturday night’s opening stage – his series-best eighth stage victory of the season.
For the first time in the modern playoff format, a driver raced his way into championship contention in the last cutoff race. Daniel Dye, 20, finished eighth in the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet – good enough to put him in the playoffs by 12 points over TRICON Garage Racing’s Tanner Gray, who finished 12th.
Tanner Gray stood by his car, understandably frustrated with the night.
“We just weren’t good enough,” Tanner Gray said. “Didn’t have the speed, didn’t have the balance and I didn’t do a good enough job, so I’m really frustrated.”
His younger brother Taylor Gray finished third Saturday night, followed by veteran Grant Enfinger and rookie Layne Riggs. The third-place finish was enough to secure Gray’s position in the 10-driver playoff field and comes in his first full-time season. Fourth-place finisher Enfinger led the most laps – 98 of the 250 – and earned the Stage Two win; his first stage victory since last season.
Tyler Ankrum, defending series champion Ben Rhodes, Dye, Ty Dillon and rookie Connor Hall rounded out the top 10 in Saturday’s race.
The 10-driver playoff field will include TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim, a five-race winner who holds a three-point advantage on Eckes to start the seven-race run. Majeski goes into the playoff run ranked third, followed by fellow race winners this season, Nick Sanchez and Rajah Caruth.
Enfinger is seeded sixth followed by Ankrum, Taylor Gray, Rhodes and Dye.