By David Morgan, Associate Editor
AVONDALE, Ariz. – The short track ace delivered.
Ty Majeski has had Phoenix Raceway circled on the calendar for months, knowing that if he and his No. 98 ThorSport Racing team made it to the season finale as one of the four NASCAR Truck Series championship contenders, the title would have to go through them.
With all but one of his now six career wins coming on short tracks, Majeski had the skillset necessary to get the job done on the one-mile Phoenix oval and from the time he and his team were on the ground here, they never wavered in their belief this was their year.
After placing third in practice, Majeski went out and scored the pole, setting himself up in the best position possible for Friday night’s title fight.
From the drop of the green flag, it was clear that Majeski would be the truck to beat all night, leading four times for a total of 132 laps, but with three cautions to start the final stage, there were some nail-biting moments on top of the No. 98 pit box with the chaotic nature of restarts on the Phoenix oval.
Fortunately for Majeski and his crew, the final restart with 27 laps to go went about as well as it could as he was able to pull away from his closest championship competitor in Corey Heim, leaving them in the dust as he would eventually cross the line with a 3.945 second advantage when the checkered flag flew to crown him as champion.
The other championship contenders in Christian Eckes and Grant Enfinger would finish the race in third and fifth-place, respectively.
“I knew yesterday. I was so relaxed. 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,” said Majeski.
“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.”
After a couple of false starts in his driving career, Majeski landed at ThorSport in 2021, where he earned his keep as an engineer with four part-time starts.
The following year, he moved into a full-time role and was able to get all the way to the Championship 4, but ultimately fell short.
Two years later, he’s the champion.
“It means a ton. 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 Schear. He’s one bad dude. I love that guy to death. Man, this thing was on point tonight.”
Majeski’s title now brings ThorSport Racing its sixth title since 2013, third since 2021 and second in a row following Ben Rhodes championship run at Phoenix a year ago.
The championship is also the fifth straight for Ford Motor Company across all three NASCAR National Series, dating back to Joey Logano’s Cup Series title in 2022. The manufacturer has now also won six of the last seven titles.
“We had so much fun here last year. We love coming out here to Phoenix and racing as part of NASCAR Championship Weekend and to have Ty Majeski and ThorSport here representing Ford in the Championship 4,” said Mark Rushbrook, Global Director, Ford Performance Motorsports.
“For them to get it done, to get the race win and win the championship means so much for us as a company and for our employees. We’re so proud to be able to partner with such great people like Duke Thorson and Ty Majeski as a driver. We’re so happy.”
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