Ty Majeski delivered an absolute beatdown on Friday night in the ASA STARS Capital 200 at Madison International Speedway.
Once outside pole sitter Cole Butcher crashed on leaked fluid from the lead on Lap 66, Majeski inherited the spot and was never truly challenged. He won the second stage by nearly 10 seconds over Casey Roderick and then maintained over the final two restarts without any dramatics. It’s the sixth win for Majeski in his home state this season, undefeated, and he’s seeking a third Badger State victory in four days on Sunday as ASA travels to Milwaukee Mile.
Oh, and as good as this car was, it’s not even their best, which they only bring out for the Snowball Derby and on Father’s Day at The Mile each season.
“This car has always raced Milwaukee and the Derby, it has a couple of other starts but it was built in 2018, maybe 10-12 races on it,” Majeski said. “It’s been a really good car. Two Snowball wins and two Milwaukee Mile wins and we’re going to bring it back and try to do it again.”
This race was likely decided on Lap 66 when Michael Bilderback laid down fluid ahead of the leaders. It was either intuition or fortune but Majeski had sensed that someone was leaking fluid in the laps before Butcher slid across it into the Turn 3 wall.
“I got the sense that something was happening,” Majeski said. “Sure enough, I saw the haze off 2. He was five or six car lengths ahead of me so I had more time to react than he did. I got go 3 and saw the discoloration in the track and just went real slow. I got into it too but I was just able to slow down enough to end up in the fence too.”
Butcher was not as intuitive or fortunate and the end of his race turned out to be the end of the race overall.
“Coming out of (Turn) 2, I had seen the smoke and I had never thought of the oil,” Butcher said. “Got on my brakes and straight into the fence.”
Regardless, Butcher isn’t sure he would have had enough to fend off Majeski to the end anyway.
“You always like to think you do but I don’t know about that tonight,” Butcher said. “They were very very good. I think this was a second place car tonight. They’re very good right now, especially in their backyard.”
From the Lap 66 crash, Majeski just laid down qualifying laps until the final stage break with 50 to go. Roderick actually stayed tight with Majeski through the first 12 laps of the stage before another caution reset the field. The second time, Majeski just drove away and was uncontested.
“Car just didn’t fire off; got tight on me,” Roderick said. “I lost the front end entering the corners. I was getting free in.
“I don’t know. These cautions really hurt us tonight. It happened at Hickory too where we were leading Cole but then we had those cautions and it jsut didn’t respond the same way after the heat cycle.”
Roderick and Anthony Campi Racing have contended for wins at every race they’ve entered since Speedfest in Janaury but have yet to reel off a win. With Butcher’s misfortune, they are now the ASA STARS championship leaders at the mid point of the season.
“I hate that happened to them,” Roderick said. “I would have been curious to see how it changed the race if those guys had to race each other a little bit more. I’m really proud of these ACR guys more than anything else. We’re going to get one soon.”
Majeski offered a similar refrain about Butcher too.
“I hated to see that happen because I think we were going to have a really good race to the end,” Majeski said. “They’ve got really good cars right now.”
But alas, so too do Majeski and Nuttleman.
Bubba Pollard, fresh off the Money in the Bank win on Wednesday at Berlin, was a non-factor all day and retired 52 laps into the race.
ASA Capital 200
Madison International Speedway
June 14 2024
- Ty Majeski
- Casey Roderick
- Austin Nason
- Caden Kvapil
- Levon VanDerGeest
- Kyle Steckly
- Gabe Sommers
- James Lynch
- Jonathan Knee
- Albert Francis
- Derek Kraus
- Ty Fredrickson
- Dawson Sutton
- Cole Butcher
- Jeff Storm
- Hudson Halder
- Casey Johnson
- Michael Bilderback
- Bubba Pollard
- Billy VanMeter
