JEFFERSON, Wis. — After a rough Friday night in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, five-time ASA Midwest Tour champion Ty Majeski came back to the “old cornfield” to turn his Memorial Day Weekend around within 24 hours.
He had no problems on Saturday as he won his third Salute the Troops 100 at Jefferson Speedway. His third win in a row to start off the season for the ASA Midwest Tour.
“Jefferson is a cool track, always has been one of my favorites ever since I ran here in my rookie season in the Big 8 Series,” the five-time ASA Midwest Tour champion said after the race. “I love coming back here when I have the opportunity to do it. This thing was good tonight. We were flogging on it all night. We actually didn’t have feel I wanted too until race time.
“We made good adjustments throughout the day, and when we hit our cars right that is the result.”
The Seymour, Wis. driver qualified seventh, but fast qualifier Levon Van Der Geest rolled a two creating a nine-car invert allowing Majeski to start on inside of the second row.
Defending ASAMT champion Gabe Sommers led the field to the green flag for the main event and led the first two laps until the first caution waved on lap three for a multi-car incident in turns one and two. Eddie Hoffman, Stephen Scheel, Ryan Farrell and Joe Valento were involved in the early accident.
On the restart, Majeski started on the outside of Sommers and it only took a lap for him to take over the lead on lap four.
A lap later, a big incident took place in turns three and four when Max Kahler appeared to get into the back of Mitch Haver going into turn three causing Haver to spin, collecting nearly a half-dozen cars including former Salute the Troops 100 winner Paul Shafer Jr., Kody King, Jordan Devoy and Brent Edmunds.
After a brief red flag to clean up, Majeski would continue to lead and remain unchallenged after a few more restarts, easily gaining a car length going down the backstretch on each restart and stretching it out.
Behind him, the action was great side-by-side racing as fans watched Van Der Geest and Sommers challenge for the second spot with Van Der Geest getting the spot on lap 55. But the gap was too wide for him to close in on Majeski to challenge for the checkered flag.
Majeski would cruise to a win by 3.759 second victory over Van Der Geest.
“I have always loved this track, and its one of my favorite tracks. We kind of had some bad luck here in the past. We had a third place run going about two years ago and got into a racing incident, but always loved racing here, its a driver’s track,” Van Der Geest said after the race. “Just really proud of my crew today for giving a car that went from ninth to second. Overall, I gave it my best and second place is nothing to complain about.”
Van Der Geest’s fast time was 13.506 seconds.
Three-time ASAMT champion and three-time Jefferson Speedway champion Casey Johnson had a up and down race. He was up to third early then fell back to eighth, then got up to fifth then fell back to eighth, until he was finally able to move forward and get by Sommers for third with five laps to go and get the final podium position.
“We got some early track position and we tried the outside on a restart and got freight trained, there was nothing out there,” Johnson explained. “I had to fight my way all the up to get third. So all in all it’s not a bad finish, but definitely not what I was looking for.”
Johnson was hoping his experience at Wisconsin’s Action Track would have helped him tonight.
“The track just doesn’t race like it did before,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if its something with our new tires or rubber or what. We were way lower in three and four than we have ever been so the racing was just goofy and we just made the best of it.”
Sommers finished fourth with Riley Stenjem rounding out the top five.
The event was broadcast live by SPEED SPORT affiliate MidwestTour.tv.