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Ty Majeski wins Dixieland 250 after Gabe Sommers hit with emergency tire penalty

A messy race was decided in messy fashion in the post-race inspection shed

Gabe Sommers crossed the finish line first but it was actually Ty Majeski who claimed the Dixieland 250 for the fifth time in his career on Tuesday night at Wisconsin International Raceway.

Majeski was awarded the win when it was determined that Sommers had taken one of his two emergency tires late in the race but didn’t serve the obligatory one lap penalty at the time, and it was assessed afterwards.

Sommers was involved in an incident up front with 28 laps to go when Luke Fenhaus and Majeski came together in Turns 1 and 2. Sommers reacted low and virtually three-wide as they approached Brent Edmunds ahead of them.

Fenhaus got into the back of Edmunds, sending him into the backstretch foam barriers. Fenhaus came down pit road for repairs and Sommers needed to take his emergency tire but was never assesses his one lap penalty.

The topic came up in the inspection shed, the tires were impounded, and it was confirmed that Sommers was on an emergency tire, resulting in the win going to Majeski for the second c

“Maybe this one isn’t quite as special as some of the other ones,” Majeski said. “I don’t like winning races this way but I’ve lost them this way as well. But yeah, you just have to put yourself in position and you never know what could happen.

“We had that run-in with the (Fenhaus) and I was pretty wounded, the toe was knocked out a little bit and the fender was peeled back and I didn’t have quite enough to compete at the end so it’s frustrating to have a chance to win the race at the end on a late restart but not have a lot to race with.

“So, that was frustrating at the time but never give up because you don’t know what will happen at the end.”

It wasn’t just that Majeski won the race in the inspection shed that bothered him but also that the race craft fell short of the usual driving standards of the Midwest Tour as well.

The race, which is now formally known as the Gandrud Auto Group 250, featured 11 cautions and many of them for multi-car incidents. The ones as the end were detailed in the official press releases:

https://twitter.com/MidwestTour/status/1821026363412725852

Andy Monday had the worse accident of the night on lap 147 when he was involved in a three car incident with Joe Valento and Lowell Bennett. The incident sent Monday hard into the farm barrier on the backstretch wall destroying his car. He was able to walk away.

With 28 laps to go, Fenhaus and Majeski were battling for the lead on a restart when the two got together in turns one and two. Sommers went low to make it three wide causing a little scramble where Fenhaus made contact with Brent Edmunds sending Edmunds into the foam barriers on the backstretch. Fenhaus came into the pits for repairs, handing the lead to Majeski.

On the restart with 21 laps to go, Derek Kraus got by Majeski for the lead. Behind him, Levon Van Der Geest was making a strong charge to the front passing Majeski for second with 13 laps to go.

Van Der Geest was challenging Kraus for the lead when the caution flew with nine laps to go when Joe Valento spun in turn three.

Van Der Geest continued to battle with Kraus for the top spot until five laps to go when it appeared that Van Der Geest hit a bump going into turn one causing his rear tires to jump up and hit Kraus while they were in a side-by-side battle for the lead. This caused Kraus to spin and bring out a caution. Both drivers were sent to the rear for the involvement in the caution.

This handed over the lead to Sommers, who held off Majeski for the unofficial win.

https://twitter.com/MidwestTour/status/1821047766660915212

“Honestly, in my opinion, a really disappointing race for everybody from the top to the bottom,” Majeski said. “It wasn’t one of our best performances as a group, throughout the field. We’re better than this, how we performed tonight.

“There were too many yellows. It’s a long enough race as it and I don’t know what time we reached the end but there’s no way it was at a decent time. Just a disappointing race but huge to come home with the win, because it’s an important race (and) a home race.

“I love winning here and even if it’s in this fashion, we’ll take them any way we can get them.”

Gandrud Auto Group 250
Wisconsin International Raceway
August 6 2024

  1. Ty Majeski
  2. Andrew Morrissey
  3. Paul Shafer
  4. Luke Fenhaus
  5. Levon VanDerGeest
  6. Derek Kraus
  7. Grant Griesbach
  8. Kris Kelly
  9. Gabe Sommers
  10. Joe Valento
  11. Ryan Farrell
  12. Lowell Bennett
  13. Ty Fredrickson
  14. Riley Stenjem
  15. Brent Edmunds
  16. John DeAngelis Jr
  17. Austin Nason
  18. Justin Mondeik
  19. Andy Monday
  20. Johnny Sauter
  21. Pete Vandermolen
  22. Cory Manders
  23. Trevor Vandermolen
  24. RJ Braun
  25. Jesse Oudenhoven
  26. Michael Anthony
  27. James Lynch

Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Dennis

    August 7, 2024 at 5:54 am

    Why was Summer acessed a penalty but did not finish last ?

  2. Matt Weaver

    August 10, 2024 at 3:32 pm

    The penalty for taking the emergency tire is one lap; not a DQ

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