Ty Majeski claims Oktoberfest pole; Midwest Tour ponders Wisconsin’s future

Picking up exactly where he left the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway a year ago, Ty Majeski was the fastest qualifier on Saturday for the ASA Midwest Tour Oktoberfest 200.

That barely registers as news. Majeski has won the fall blowout five times, including the past two. The biggest question to follow time trials then was what sort of ‘ultimate challenge’ bonus could promoter Gregg McKarns pull together.

“Usually they offer me some money to maybe start in the back,” Majeski said. “We’ll see if they do it this year.”

It took a few hours, but McKarns said more than $10,000 would be on the line if Majeski opts to start in the rear of the field — which he will — rather than in the mid-pack spot that would be determined partly by the roll of a die. That’s in addition to the $10,000 winner’s share of the purse. 

“We unloaded pretty good on Wednesday and sometimes when you go through the days of Oktoberfest and the different rubbers (from numerous divisions) your car can change if it’s not quite balanced right,” Majeski said. “But so far it really hasn’t changed too much.”

Behind Majeski’s fast lap of 18.538 seconds, Andrew Morrissey was second at 18.643. Penn Sauter was third but will join Majeski at the back after his time was disallowed for weight.

Hanging over the weekend, though, is a bigger question than who’d set fast time or who might catch him.

After the announcement Friday of the merger of ASA with Kevin Harvick’s CARS Tour West to form a unified super late model sanctioning body, what might the 58th Oktoberfest headliner look like in 2027?

Competitors with varying levels of insight into the deal expressed a mix of hope and skepticism.

“Hopefully they can leave well enough alone, but I also understand that they may want to have more of a national rule package so we can go run anywhere with the same race car,” said Dave McCardle, Morrisssey’s car owner. “That is appealing.

“But I feel like the Midwest has been really strong. Our car counts are better than most everywhere else in the country.”

As previous ASA owner Bob Sargent found out when he launched the STARS National Tour, it’s not easy to blend regional rules and traditions. The Midwest in particular is an outlier with rules aimed at cost containment, such as a preference for two-barrel carburetors.

The effect of rules difference is clear when comparing car counts for STARS and the Midwest Tour at tracks that run both. The entry list for the Midwest Tour opener at Slinger Speedway had 28 cars, whereas the STARS race two months later attracted 16.

So what remains to be seen are the specific rules, whether tracks that still race Super Late Models regularly follow suit with any changes in specs and how the teams — particularly the smaller ones — respond. In Wisconsin specifically, open special events such as the Slinger Nationals and the Dells Raceway Park’s Alive For Five Series could be the most dramatically affected.

“It’s probably more positive than negative for me,” said Dan Fredrickson, the 2013 Midwest Tour champion who fields cars in numerous series with various engine rules for his teen son Ty.

“I love Wisconsin racing, so we’ll just make sure we have a Wisconsin car for those races.”

Count the Wisconsin-born Majeski among those firmly in the don’t-screw-up-what-we-have-here camp. The 2024 NASCAR truck champion is a five-time Midwest Tour title holder and four-time Slinger Nationals winner as well as the inaugural STARS champion in 2023.

“I’m most interested in the health of the sport,” Majeski said. “But would four barrels maybe suit me better and maybe a less grippy tire? Probably. But I look at it as more of the industry as a whole, not just looking off of my own agenda.”

Twenty-five cars qualified Saturday.

A handful of competitors were asked, with the caveat that there was still much to be learned about the merger, what they thought the 2027 field might look like. All were hopeful.

“Just ride the wave, see what happens,” said Paul Shafer Jr., who bested the 25-car field in the most recent Midwest Tour race, the Bettenhausen Memorial at Grundy County Speedway.

“At the end of the day, we all just hope we have a good place to race, and they pay good money at the shows. At the end of the day, we all want to have fun wherever we go.”