AVONDALE, Ariz. — Ty Majeski showed up to Phoenix Raceway and pulled off one of the biggest beatdowns in the history of NASCAR’s Phoenix Championship Weekend.
Starting on the pole, Majeski led a whopping 132 of the 150 laps in Friday’s (Nov. 8) title race. He beat runner-up Corey Heim for the win by nearly four seconds to clinch his first series championship, back-to-back titles for ThorSport Racing and the fourth consecutive title in the series for Ford.
Heim led 16 laps, in the end the only driver that could contend with the No. 98 truck. But in the middle of the final stage, Heim’s title hopes took a hit when he was penalized on a restart by moving out of line before he reached the start/finish line.
“I was really frustrated at first because I didn’t really understand [the penalty],” Heim said. “I haven’t really seen a replay of it yet, so I guess I would have to go look at it. It’s hard for me to sit here and criticize without ever seeing it.
“… I was surprised at first because I had no idea I did anything wrong to begin with, but I certainly could have.”
.@NASCARONFOX takes a closer look at the penalty issued to the No. 11. #Championship4 https://t.co/PX635eTyni pic.twitter.com/W1OENW3xPT
— NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks (@NASCAR_Trucks) November 9, 2024
Heim drove all the way back to second after the penalty and finished just under four seconds behind Majeski. But even if he wasn’t penalized, Heim didn’t feel good about his chances of taking the race win from the No. 98 team.
“They were unbelievably lights-out the whole race,” Heim said. “From the get-go, I felt like we fired off pretty free in stage one, and we were able to reel him back in. He seemed to struggle in traffic a little bit.
“Once they adjusted on it and once the caution started cycling to the point where we never really hit a lot of lapped traffic, it was about over for me.”
The good news for Heim was he remained in his own zip code against the rest of the field. The bad news for Heim was that the final driver to squeak into the Championship 4 was in his own universe.
“[Majeski] was probably two-tenths better than me a lap me pushing 100%,” Heim said. “The unfortunate part is I feel like our Tundra TRD Pro is really good. We were probably two-tenths better than the guys behind us.”
Christian Eckes and Grant Enfinger didn’t possess race-winning speed, so they rolled the dice by pitting for fresh tires under the final caution with 30 laps to go. They charged their way through the field, but were only able to finish third and fifth, respectively.
In the end, they had no tires left by the time they reached the two leaders.
“[The truck] initially had more grip, but I feel like I had to abuse the tires to make the moves that I was doing,” Eckes said. “Eventually just ran out, but I felt like the tires kind of equalized there to a certain degree because of the vehicle that we had versus the No. 11 and No. 98.”
“I mean, pretty much I was in the same boat there,” Enfinger said. “We could go for a little bit, but at the end of the day the trucks that were better finished in front of us.”
“The new tires were good for the restart and kind of made you be able to easily pass the trucks that you were better than anyway. But it was only like five laps’ difference on tires. If there had been more than that, maybe they showed up more in the long run.”
Eckes dominated the year with four wins, 1,050 laps led and a top 10 in 22 of 23 races. But it was his bump-and-run on playoff driver Taylor Gray at Martinsville Speedway last Friday (Nov. 1) that allowed Majeski to advance to the Championship 4.
Despite Majeski’s win, Eckes didn’t think twice about how it all played out.
“I mean, we still lost the championship no matter what. The No. 11 beat us,” he said. “Yeah, no regrets.”
Enfinger impressed with back-to-back wins in the Round of 8 (the first-ever wins for CR7 Motorsports) and a Championship 4 berth in his first season with the team, but he’ll be looking for much more going forward.
“At the end of the day, we just flat out didn’t have the speed,” Enfinger said. “…I couldn’t do it all on a short run. I feel proud of the effort but disappointed with today and our performance.”
All three drivers put up their best fight, but in the end, they were no match for Majeski. It’s a team in Thorsport Racing and a manufacturer in Ford who found ways to dominate and take home the Truck Series championship hardware once again.
Follow Stephen Stumpf on X at @stephen_stumpf
About the author
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly columns include “Stat Sheet” and “4 Burning Questions.” He also writes commentary, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Can find on Twitter @stephen_stumpf.
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