It took Harrison Burton spinning his tires on the final restart with 18 laps to go but Ty Majeski won his second straight Rattler 250 Super Late Model race on Sunday afternoon at South Alabama Speedway.
Burton had taken the lead on the previous restart but simply made a critical mistake with the race on the line. It looked like Majeski had jumped the restart but the consensus in the garage was that the second generation driver fired but couldn’t get going.
As he tends to do, Majeski capitalized.
“He fired first, and then I fired, he spun his tires, and my stuff made grip and I beat you into Turn 6,” Majesjki said. “It’s a judgement call, but I knew I didn’t have the car if I didn’t beat him there. I went with it and it ended up being a good decision.”
Burton took blame for the defeat and took it in stride.
“All I know is that I need to focus on myself and do a better job on restarts,” Burton said. “There’s a reason he beat me and we need to understand why that is. That’s a tough one to swallow. My guys worked really hard and got me a really good car and I threw it away.”
READ MORE: Complete Rattler 250 coverage
Once out in front, Majeski cruised to a two-second lead, and never looked back. Burton, meanwhile, was forced to deal with a hard charging Steve Wallace. Together, they made up the podium.
Jeff Choquette finished fourth but had the best car of the afternoon. He led the first 211 laps — second most in Rattler history — but was forced out of the lead by Garrett Jones. He did so by shoving Choquette up the track in Turns 3 and 4, but Jones gave up the lead to Burton a lap later.
Once back in third, Jones himself was sent up the track by Choquette.
The Majeski, Burton 1-2 finish is the latest chapter in a friendly rivalry between the two over the past calendar year. Both youngsters were contenders in last year’s Rattler and competed for the World Series of Asphalt Championship in February at New Smyrna Speedway.
Even though Majeski won the latest battle, he hopes to see Burton stay in the mix moving forward, just because he enjoys how the duo races against each other.
“I really enjoy racing against Harrison,” Majeski said in the tech shed after the race. “He always races us clean and they’ve been building fast cars lately. These FURY Race Cars are tough to beat right now and they bring the best us when we try to beat them.
“Honestly, I think they were better than us today. We’re getting closer and it was good to beat them and we weren’t necessarily at our best.”
Burton took the loss in stride but says this is one of the toughest losses in his early career, echoing similar statements he made in the first race of the World Series in February. But the stakes were much higher in this race.
He’s opened the season with victories in CRA Speedfest at Cordele, CARS Tour at Concord and the World Series championship. Having a chance to add the Rattler 250 to his resume but missing out due to a mistake will admittedly bug him for a few days.
“You’re going to win some that way and you’re going to lose some that way,” Burton said. “I’m just going to focus on getting better but I definitely need to work on my restarts after today. I thought I had cleared that part of my game up, especially in Supers, but today reminded me that there’s always more work to be done.”
With the win, Majeski adds his name to elite company as just the second driver to win back-to-back Rattlers and just the fourth in history to win more than one. He joins Wayne Willard, Ronnie Sanders, Augie Grill and Grant Enfinger and winners of multiple Rattlesnake Radios.
The complete results can be viewed below.
- Ty Majeski
- Harrison Burton
- Steve Wallace
- Jeff Choquette
- Stephen Nasse
- Christian Eckes
- Chandler Smith
- Raphael Lessard
- Garrett Jones
- Cole Anderson
- Bubba Pollard
- Steve Dorer
- Casey Roderick
- Kyle Plott
- Augie Grill
- Paul Kelley
- Connor Okrezsik
- John Van Dourn
- Chris Davidson
- Paul Shafer Jr
- Derek Scott Jr
- Chase Purdy
- Donnie Wilson
- Cory Roper
- Brandon McReynolds
- Jerry Artuso
- Kyle Bryant
