By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
CONCORD, N.C. – Despite a penalty at the start of the final Stage, Ty Majeski rallied to earn his career-best finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Under caution at the end of the second Stage, Majeski followed the rest of the field onto pit road. However, a member of his No. 66 SimCraft Toyota Tundra team brought equipment over the wall before the ThorSport Racing driver was close enough. The ensuing penalty dropped Majeski to outside the top-20 on the running order.
Over the next 47 laps, the Seymour, WI native climbed through the field. Following a round of green flag pit stops, Majeski was inside the top-10. A caution for a massive wreck between his ThorSport teammate Johnny Sauter, Trey Hutchens, and Drew Dollar left just 12 trucks on the lead lap.
Majeski took advantage of the track position. In the final 10-lap run to the checkered flag, he held off charges from Derek Kraus, Austin Hill, and Zane Smith. When the 26-year-old crossed the line for the final time in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, he was seventh.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” admitted Majeski. “This is a fifth effort for ThorSport. Bud and all of the guys did a good job preparing this thing. When I came to engineer this truck for Paul (Menard) at COTA, this thing was basically bare bones, so they worked a lot of hours to get this thing ready and they did a good job on it.
“Just really proud of the effort. We had that penalty after the second stage, and it definitely set us back a bit. But we fought back to a top-10 finish. Thought we had top-five speed, just didn’t have track position to go with it, but overall, really good effort for everyone.”
Prior to the pit road penalty, Majeski had finished the second Stage in third. His ThorSport team opted to stay on track during a late-Stage caution. The opportunity allowed Majeski to showcase his truck’s speed.
The seventh-place finish is Majeski’s fourth career top-10 finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. It is his best-career Truck Series finish to date. The seventh-place finish is also Majeski’s seventh top-10 finish between the Truck Series and Xfinity Series.
Majeski’s next scheduled start is the Rackley Roofing 200 at Nashville Superspeedway Friday, June 18.
Featured Photo Credit: Photo by NKP / NKP Photo