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Ty Majeski Repeats At South Carolina 400

TIMMONSVILLE, S.C. – The odds were stacked against Ty Majeski during Saturday’s South Carolina 400 at Florence Motor Speedway, but somehow he made the odds work in his favor.

Forced to take a provisional just to start the 150-lap late model stock car main event, Majeski saved his tires for the first 100 laps before charging his way through the field to win the event for the second-straight year.

Majeski started 35th in the 37-car field, but opted to play the tire conservation game and stayed at the back of the field through the first 100 laps. That left him mired 27th in the field at the start of the final 50-lap segment, but lady luck was on his side.

Just as the field to the green flag to start the final 50-lap dash, a massive multi-car pileup on the frontstretch took out a large portion of Majeski’s competition. That allowed him to make up a lot of positions on the track without having to use up his tires to do it.

“That was absolutely what saved our race,” Majeski said of the restart crash. “We put ourselves in a box after qualifying and had to start at the back. It forced our hand to really save tires. Without that wreck taking out 10, 15 cars I would have never been able to get there.”

When racing resumed it was Doug Barnes who was leading the field, with new JR Motorsports driver Carson Kvapil restarting alongside him. Kvapil would take the lead from Barnes with 38 laps left and begin to set sail.

Behind them, Majeski was carving up the field. Soon he was in the top-10 and running down the leaders, but he needed a caution flag if he was going to catch Kvapil. 

He got his wish with 12 laps left when the engine in Justin Hicks’ car expired in a cloud of smoke, forcing event officials to call for the caution flag and erase Kvapil’s advantage. By that point Majeski was up to third behind Kvapil and Barnes. 

After a failed attempt at the restart, the field got racing again and it was Barnes who got the jump on Kvapil to take the lead. Unfortunately for Barnes the caution flag would wave again shortly thereafter for a car stopped in turn three, negating the move and putting Kvapil back in front.

This time it was Kvapil who got the better jump as he held the lead ahead of Barnes, but Majeski was back on the march. He quickly dispatched Barnes for second and set off in pursuit of Kvapil. 

For the next few laps Majeski hounded Kvapil as he looked for a way past. With six laps left Majeski got to Kvapil’s inside down the backstretch and they raced side-by-side, with Majeski leading at the start/finish line.

Down the backstretch on the next lap the pair made contact, with Majeski pulling clear with the race lead as a result. Moments later the final caution flag of the race would wave as Matt Cox spun in turn three.

That set up a five-lap dash to the checkered with Majeski now the leader ahead of Kvapil. Kvapil got a good restart and hung with Majeski for a lap, but Majeski was able to pull clear and hang on to win the South Carolina 400 for the second-straight season. 

The win was worth $10,000.

“One thing my dad taught me when I was a real young kid was you’ve got to surround yourself with better people than you,” Majeski said. “Chad (Bryant, team owner), Toby (Nuttleman) on the super late model side, all these guys at Triple R Racing…Chad Bryant is a great friend of mine. He gave me a chance in 2019 when my career could have been over and we ran five ARCA races and won three of them. It propelled me to my next opportunity. This is really damn cool.”

Kvapil settled for second, with Brandon Pierce coming from 25th to finish third. Connor Hall was fourth, with Barnes finishing fifth.

The finish:

Ty Majeski, Carson Kvapil, Brandon Pierce, Connor Hall, Doug Barnes, Ryan Millington, Stefan Parsons, Sammy Smith, Mark Wertz, Bobby McCarty, Corey Heim, Connor Mosack, Averitt Lucas, Brendan Queen, Jacob Heafner, Justin Johnson, Cody Kelley, Braden Rogers, Connor Jones, Janson Marchbanks, Justin Milliken, Annabeth Barnes, Isabella Robusto, Matt Cox, Carter Langley, Jason York, Justin Hicks, Trent Barnes, Chad McCumbee, Matt Linker, Jeremy McDowell, Zack Miracle, Casey Kelley, Kade Brown, Ryan Glenski, Jamie Weatherford, Dexter Canipe Jr., R.A. Brown, Jason York.