Ty Majeski has lost the Snowball Derby plenty of times during his super late model career.
He’s been in his fair share of late-race wrecks during the short-track crown jewel, and felt his shot at scoring the Tom Dawson Trophy and champion’s ring be ripped out from under him one too many times.
But not this year.
“Finally, one went my way,” Majeski said with a chuckle.
With six laps to go in the 300-lap marathon, Majeski watched as leaders Stephen Nasse and Bubba Pollard crashed in front of him while battling for the lead. After holding off super late model rookie Gio Ruggiero on the restart, Majeski claimed his second Snowball Derby victory triumph in four years.
“It was a great race between Stephen Nasse, Bubba Pollard and I,” Majeski said. “We were probably the best long-run car, but Nasse and Bubba were a little bit better on the short run. I don’t know that we would’ve won without them getting together, but you just have to be in position in that race.”
Being in the right spot at the right time paid off, as the driver of the No. 91 super late model found out that night at Florida’s Five Flags Speedway. But no matter how he won it, what mattered was that he did.
“You’d take pretty much every race throughout the entire season and trade it for a Snowball win. It doesn’t get any more special than that,” Majeski said.
And yet, that wasn’t the only thing for the 29-year-old to celebrate come season’s end. During the All American 400 at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway on Nov. 5, Majeski was crowned the inaugural champion of the ASA STARS National Tour.
Over the course of the 10-race season, Majeski won three races — the Joe Shear Classic 200 at Madison Int’l Speedway, Father’s Day 100 at The Milwaukee Mile and Gandrud Auto Group 250 at Wisconsin Int’l Raceway.
Oddly enough, prior to the mid-point of the season, the Wisconsin native wasn’t planning to run the full ASA schedule.
Due to his commitments as a full-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver for ThorSport Racing, the final three races of the ASA STARS season presented a logistical hassle.
But being in position as the points leader with three to go, Majeski and his Gearheads Motorsports team wanted to put in the effort to finish out the year strong.
“Toledo, Winchester and Nashville were logistically going to be hard for us to get to,” Majeski explained. “But thankfully we had the Michael Hinde crew lend us a car for Winchester and we were able to get a flight overnight to make it to Nashville.”
In the end, it paid off.
“There are not too many times where you’re in a position to win a championship, so we wanted to try and finish it off,” Majeski said.
His statement will ring true as soon as next year, as Majeski will be unable to defend his ASA STARS National Tour title — there are several conflicts with his Truck Series schedule.
But the driver of the No. 91 super late model will be back.
“I’m going to piece together late model races around my Truck Series schedule, so pretty much a lot of the same,” Majeski said. “We won’t be able to defend the championship next season, but we’re going to make it to as many of them as we can and hopefully help keep short-track racing healthy.”