There was an element of Déjà vu starting to settle in for Ty Majeski.
For the second time in four days, Majeski was absolutely dominating a race he was poised to easily win if all things were equal. On Saturday, his pit entry was not equal, and the resulting strategy was not equal and he lost the lead inside the final five laps.
He called it the most dejected he has ever been behind the wheel of a race car.
So imagine how Majeski felt upon leading the first 162 laps on Tuesday in the Gandrud Auto Group 250 and then developing a throttle linkage problem that caused him to burn up his rear tires and begin sinking through the field approaching the end of the second stage break.
Was it going to happen again — he must have wondered
“In hindsight, it just needed to be lubed,” Majeski said in Victory Lane. “It was sticky and I couldn’t be smooth with my initial, first 15 percent of throttle input.
“I was really hard on the right rear because I had to go from 0 to 20 instead of rolling into it. I killed the right rear tire and lost all that track position and brakes, but got it fixed for the 75-lap dash at the end.”
But that wasn’t the only was Majeski could have lost the Dixieland. He has positioned himself back to second, running behind leader John DeAngelis, when some good spotting and a quick trigger got him through a crash directly ahead.
Multiple laps down, Harley Jankowski crashed off the nose of DeAngelis, who also suffered significant right-side damage in the ordeal. DeAngelis tried to remain in the race but the car was not drivable on the ensuing restart.
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Majeski narrowly avoided being swept up into it, while DeAngelis was left fuming.
“A lap car, 16 laps off the lead decides he can’t pick a lane at a closing rate of half a lap faster than he is,” DeAngelis said. “This series, it’s going to keep losing cars, and I hate to track or series bash but it’s bullshit.
“They had a car 16 laps down, racing and wrecking the leader, and it sucks for the fans, sponsors and both of our teams that we couldn’t race each other for the win they way we both earned.”
But that wasn’t the end of the challenges for Majeski, who then needed to once again fend of Luke Fenhaus at the end of another race in Wisconsin, as has been the case in the past two Slinger Nationals as well.
Fenhaus got under Majeski and stayed there for two laps before washing up the track in Turn 2 and conceding the spot.
“It’s always a good battle,” Majeski said. “Luke is a good race car driver. He’s been doing this for awhile now. We’ve been racing for the win for awhile now and when that happens, you learn each other’s tendencies.
“The more we do it, the less advantages I have and all it takes is for him to guess right and he’s got clean air.”
For his part, even after coming up short so many times to that No. 91 car, Fenhaus accepts there’s no shame in losing to them here.
“I didn’t like my restart before that and wanted to make that one better,” Fenhaus said. “I feel like I did and if I could have gotten out front, to get some clean air and track position, would have been huge.
“Even then, I think I could only hang on for 10 or 15 laps so even still, I don’t think it decided the race, but I really would have liked to see what would have happened.”
For Majeski and car builder Toby Nuttleman, that’s four wins in five years at the race historically called the Dixieland 250.
“We just had a good racecar,” Majeski said. “This package has always been good to me, we brought a really good package here in 2019 and we really haven’t changed it too much since. These guys (Fenhaus) are getting closer, the No. 7 (DeAngelis) was really good. It would’ve been a really good race between him and I too.”
But make no mistake, this doesn’t take the sting out of what happened on Saturday.
“Not at all,” Majeski said. “I want that one back. Those truck races are so hard to win. There’s so many variables that go into winning those races, and to have so many of them go our way, and not win still stings.”
Gandrud Auto Group 250
Wisconsin International Raceway
August 1 2023
- Ty Majeski
- Luke Fenhaus
- Derek Kraus
- Gabe Sommers
- Barrett Polhemus
- Gio Ruggiero
- Bubba Pollard
- Cole Butcher
- Billy VanMeter
- Austin Nason
- Bryan Syer-Keske
- Paul Shafer Jr
- Justin Mondeik
- John DeAngelis
- Jonathan Eilen
- Harley Jankowski
- Andy Monday
- Albert Francis
- Levon Van Der Geest
- RJ Braun
- Sammy Smith
- Bobby Kendall
- Trevor Vandermolen
- Joseph Scholze
- Johnny Sauter
- Pete Vandermolen
- James Swanson
