NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. — Assuming nothing goes wrong on Saturday night, Ty Majeski has made himself a near-lock to win the 2016 World Series of Asphalt Super Late Model championship at New Smyrna Speedway.
He enters the 100-lap championship race on Saturday night with a 16-point championship advantage over Steven Wallace, and two more over Harrison Burton. That amounts to roughly 15 positions on the track, meaning that Majeski should clinch by virtue of just finishing the race.
Complicating matters is that the Bruce Gowland Memorial 100 will feature the most cars of any event this season. The level of competition will be at its highest and the margin for error is considerably smaller for Majeski and his championship rivals.
With that said, Majeski is starting to feel confident.
“You don’t want to change anything you’ve been doing,” Majeski said. “We still want to win races and get the best finish possible. Winning the championship would be a big deal but so are winning races against drivers like this.”
If not for a crash on Night 2 of the World Series, Burton would have been much closer to Majeski in the standings. He defeated Majeski head-to-head on Thursday night to close the gap but expects needing another victory to make thing interesting in the big picture.
“I feel like we’ve been the best two guys here, but they’ve been a lot more consistent and avoided trouble better than we have,” Burton said. “We’ve proven we can win so I feel good about our team, but we might need a little bit of help.”
Consider Wallace an optimist.
He won the opener last weekend, but also got caught up in the Night 2 crash. He’s consistently finished third to Majeski and Burton throughout the World Series and believes that everyone will have a problem at least once during Speedweeks.
“You figure everyone will have to use a mulligan once this week,” Wallace said. “So we’ll have to see how Saturday plays out.”
The championship standings and an entry list prior to the Bruce Gowland Memorial 100 can be found below.
Speedweeks Championship Standings
1. Ty Majeski Ldr.
2. Steve Wallace -16
3. Harrison Burton -18
4. Stephen Nasse -24
5. Derek Thorn -27
6. Zane Smith -39
7. Christian Eckes -47
8. Martin Latulippe -53
Final Practice Results
- Harrison Burton 17.564
- Ty Majeski 17.675
- Christian Eckes 17.792
- Chad Finley 17.826
- Dalton Armstrong 17.841
- Quinn Houff 17.844
- Gus Dean 17.847
- Stephen Nasse 17.849
- Tyler Ankrum 17.873
- Steve Wallace 17.920
- Garrett Jones 17.929
- Derek Thorn 17.942
- Zane Smith 17.985
- Michael Atwell 18.012
- David Garbo Jr 18.023
- Tanner Gray 18.058
- Brad May 18.067
- Martin Latulippe 18.076
- Daniel Keene Jr 18.098
- Derek Kraus 18.111
- Riley Herbst 18.126
- Derek Scott Jr 18.134
- Fredrick Moore 18.145
- David Rogers 18.173
- Garrett Hall 18.192
- Vinne Miller 18.219
- Brandon Booth 18.254
- Josh Collins 18.290
- Natalie Decker 18.328
- DJ Hoelzle 18.398
