It's all uphill, but Ty Majeski sees a path to second NASCAR truck title
It's all uphill, but Ty Majeski sees a path to second NASCAR truck title
Dave Kallmann, Milwaukee Journal SentinelWed, September 16, 2026 at 10:16 AM UTC
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Although NASCAR did away with the three-races-and-reset approach in its latest version of the Craftsman Truck Series championship format, Ty Majeski is still focused on that first short stretch.
The 2024 champion from Seymour – a long shot this year – has seen enough since the Cup Series and O’Reilly Series each started their “Chase” to refine his plan of attack for his. Majeski’s goal for the first part of his is simply to survive.
“We have tracks circled in the playoffs that we feel we can win,” he said during a media session before the opener Sept. 17 at Bristol Motor Speedway. “We circled those as the tracks that we’re going to be aggressive at and go for the win.
“The tracks that maybe we aren’t as good at or they’re earlier in the playoffs, we’re going to try and go and hit a single or a double and try not to take unnecessary risks and take yourself out of a race that you didn’t think you had as good of a chance to win anyways.
“I think, for us, it’s about getting through the first three.”
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Majeski, 32, is winless since he won his title at Phoenix Raceway, 43 races and nearly 22 months ago. In fact the entire ThorSport Racing Ford organization is.
His best chance to break that slump would appear to be back at Phoenix, which now falls smack dab in the middle of the seven-race Chase, Oct. 16.
Points were reset for the top 10 after the most recent race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where Layne Riggs took his season-high sixth victory, and the teams have had nearly a month to prepare for the stretch run.
The reset cut Riggs’ lead from 99 to 25 over Kaden Honeycutt, and Majeski, in sixth place, starts at minus-50, having had a whopping 278 points of his deficit wiped out.
“If we can get through the first three and sort of push, still be right around that 50-point back mark, then we get into Phoenix, a place we think we can win,” Majeski said Sept. 15.
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After Bristol come Kansas Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, a pair of 1.5-mile tracks, followed by a superspeedway and a short track before the trophy is handed out in south Florida.
“Talladega is obviously a big wild card, and then Martinsville, another place we feel like we can win, and then Homestead, we’ve won there before,” Majeski continued.
“For us, it’s about taking maybe a little bit more of a careful approach the first three and then being aggressive in those last four at all places we feel are more in our wheelhouse and feel like we have a good chance to win.”
But whatever the approach, Majeski and his team are staring at a massive mountain to climb in terms of performance and good fortune.
While Riggs dominated and his Front Row Motorsports Ford teammate Chandler Smith won a pair of races, and reigning champ Corey Heim won three in a part-time role with Toyota and Tricon Garage, Majeski crashed out of three races and finished outside the top 25 four other times.
He has managed just five top-five finishes, and his average staring position of 9.8 and average finish of 16.3 would be the worst of his five full-time seasons.
Majeski’s teammates have fared worse. Ben Rhodes, the 2021 and ’23 series champion, limped into the Chase in ninth place, and rookie Cole Butcher sits a miserable 19th.
“We’re certainly off. I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Majeski said. “We’ve shown race-winning speed at a handful of tracks, but a handful of tracks isn’t good enough.
“We need to have our off days be fifth to seventh, and right now our off days are more like 10th to 12th. We have to raise the bar and put ourselves in better positions to win.”
If they can’t do that, Majeski’s already slim hopes will evaporate quickly. And there are no more resets, like the ones that helped Majeski crack the final four and win the title in 2024.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to be consistent throughout these seven races,” he said, “and we’re going to have to figure out a way to also peak at one or maybe two of them to truly have a chance heading into Homestead.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: It's all uphill, but Ty Majeski sees a path to second NASCAR truck title
Source: “AOL Sports”
