MILWAUKEE, Wis. — In what might be the last Craftsman Truck Series race at the Milwaukee Mile, Seymour, Wis., native Ty Majeski came up “just short” of the win.
Entering Sunday’s (Aug. 25) LiUNA! 175, Majeski was going for his third straight Trucks win. He left Milwaukee with a second place to continue his hot streak, but Majeski wanted more at his home track.
“So close,” Majeski said. “If there’s one of these last three that I wanted, it’s this one of course. Being at the Milwaukee Mile, a lot of people in the stands here today, it would’ve been quite the celebration tonight.”
In driver introductions before the race, Majeski received the loudest cheers of any of the drivers. In both races he’s had at the Mile, he showed a lot of speed, even leading 45 laps on Sunday, but he was unable to get the checkered flag in front of a crowd that loves him. Now, he may never get that opportunity again.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported before the race Sunday that Trucks would not return to the mile-long speedway.
“I wanted to win, those are my thoughts if we don’t come back here,” Majeski said. “I feel like there’s such a good craving and hunger for racing in Wisconsin. It’s such a great area for racing fans in general. And I think it’s a huge missed opportunity if NASCAR doesn’t come here. The crowd was fantastic today. Had to be over 10,000 [people], it looked like up there.
“Yeah, I wish we were able to come back here. I know there’s a lot of business that goes into those decisions behind the scenes that I know nothing about. But for a guy from Wisconsin, as a short track racer, I think we need to be coming back to Wisconsin in some way, shape or form, whether that’s here, Road America or anywhere else for that matter. Hopefully, NASCAR can find a way to continue to do that.”
Majeski was among the top three for nearly the entirety of Sunday’s race. He started from the pole and led 42 laps before playoff-rival Christian Eckes got around him. He finished fourth in stage one, but only because he and Eckes pitted while two other trucks stayed out to get stage points.
The ThorSport Racing driver ran second to Eckes in all of stage two but he lost second to eventual-winner Layne Riggs on pit road during the stage break. Restarting third, Majeski slid underneath Eckes and Riggs to take the lead on lap 120 of 175.
“I knew Christian [Eckes] was gonna take the bottom, he was gonna throw a slider on the No. 38 — same thing he did to me,” Majeski said. “I knew if I could push him into the corner, he’d throw that slider and as long as I was disciplined and got the truck turned, there was potential that I could take advantage of his slider. And I did.
“It went exactly how we planned it. I just didn’t quite have the truck. Just overall, too tight of a balance today. … We were firing off tight, and that gets tighter as you go.”
Three laps later, Riggs caught and passed Majeski.
“Felt like if I could’ve stayed in front of the No. 38 long enough, clean air is king here, especially on a long run,” Majeski said. “We didn’t have it and just didn’t have the balance to do it.”
Riggs never looked back, and Majeski settled into second, where he finished.
“I closed [the gap] at different times over the course of the last run,” Majeski said. “Just not enough.”
Still, scoring his third straight top two, the run further cemented Majeski as a force to be reckoned with in the Truck playoffs. He leaves Milwaukee 44 points over the Round of 10 cut line.
“For as bad as I felt like we missed it today, for as close as we were, it means our trucks are good,” Majeski said. “They’re making the grip even though we missed the balance on them. Yeah, pretty proud of that. We’ve had a lot of effort going the last few weeks, over the Olympic break and into this race on making our truck better, and it showed.”
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.