Ty Majeski, Cole Butcher to settle ASA championship on Sunday

For the longest time, it looked like Ty Majeski was a threat to win both the NASCAR Truck Series and ASA STARS national Super Late Model championships in the same season but it’s become entirely plausible that he could wind up with neither.

An engine failure 15 laps into the Winchester 400 last month left Majeski with just an eight-point advantage over Cole Butcher with just the All American 400 remaining on Sunday at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway.

During that span, Majeski also saw himself prematurely eliminated from the NASCAR Truck Series championship, not even reaching the final four this weekend at Phoenix Raceway. Despite the elimination, he still had a chance to win the race at Phoenix when he was involved in an overtime crash with Jesse Love.

It’s been that kind of month for Majeski and his arrival into Nashville couldn’t even go according to plan.

“Was supposed to land at 11:15, landed at 1:15,” Majeski said. “Made it for the last half of practice after missing yesterday. We unloaded top of the board first time out, which is good, because sometimes you spend all day looking for it and never do find it. …

“Made a couple of adjustments in race trim and was decent and we have 300 laps to keep working on it.”

From a championship standpoint, the season long points battle might come down to stage points.

“It all depends on where the cautions fall and the strategy calls,” Majeski said. “We have to be mindful of the position we’re in. Stage points are important and that could decide the championship as much as the finishing order.”

Butcher can’t even believe we’re talking about points given how far away he was even two months ago.

“He could have locked it up in Winchester if things went his way and they didn’t,” Butcher said. “But Nashville is an interesting finale and I’m not sure I ever even finished an All American 400.”

He hasn’t.

“I was at lap 298 last year, but we got to finish it this year and put a show on for the fans.”

He also believes he’s got a really good race car for Sunday too.

“We had a really good car, short run and long run, from my standpoint,” Butcher said. “We changed motors this morning, found something wrong with it, but better now than in the race.

“We’re putting the motor Gio (Ruggiero) used at Winchester so it’s a good piece. We’re looking forward to it and just excited to be in this position.”

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