Ty Majeski wins Homestead, rides wave into Championship Round

After failing to win across his first thirty-nine career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts and qualifying for the playoffs on consistency alone, Ty Majeski will enter the Championship Round having won two of the three races in the Round of 8.

Majeski, who won the Round of 8 opener at Bristol to clinch a spot in the Championship Four, was strong throughout Saturday’s Homestead-Miami Speedway event as he finished fourth and second in the first two stages. He took the lead to begin the final segment and dominated it, only relinquishing the top spot to pit under green. It is ThorSport Racing‘s third win at Homestead and first since Matt Crafton in 2015.

“This place is so much fun. This race track is just badass, so much fun to race on,” Majeski stated. “Obviously, it makes it more fun when you have a truck like that. I’m so proud of Joe (Shear Jr., crew chief), everybody at ThorSport—Duke, Rhonda, Allison (Thorson, team owners)—to let us go and live our dreams. We all make a living racing and that is pretty dang cool. I love doing this. I’m so happy to be here and so proud to making the most of this opportunity.

“I can’t ask for much more momentum going into Phoenix chasing a championship. That is our goal. We are plenty capable of doing it. We proved it two of the last three races, and we are going to go give it our best shot.”

Zane Smith finished second to join Majeski in the final round, as do Ben Rhodes (sixth) and Chandler Smith (tenth). Rhodes’ title defence remains alive with his run as he beat Stewart Friesen by a single point despite the latter’s third-place run. Friesen claimed team orders from ThorSport assisted in Rhodes making the Championship Four over him, arguing Crafton had allowed Rhodes to pass him to gain the additional point. Team orders have been a hot-button issue in NASCAR since Cup Series driver Cole Custer was docked fifty points and indefinitely lost his crew chief for intentionally impeding other drivers at Charlotte to help Stewart-Haas Racing ally Chase Briscoe make the Round of 8.

“I didn’t have a team-mate to lay over and give me an extra point,” said Friesen.

Also eliminated are Christian Eckes, John Hunter Nemechek, and Grant Enfinger. Nemechek’s hopes were dashed after blowing a tyre and hitting the wall on lap 14.

“Just made a mistake on my end,” Nemechek explained. “I got dirtied up behind the #52 (Friesen) early on in Stage #1 and hit the fence and just trying to make up time and was pushing the issue probably a little too hard. Ultimately pushed it a little too hard, hit the fence again and had the right front go flat. Came in, pitted and ended up not clearing tyres good enough, and had another tyre go down and had to pit again. Then had to play pit strategy and after that it was just damage control.”

Despite scoring top fives, the multi-driver #17 of David Gilliland Racing (driven by Ryan Preece at Homestead) and #51 of Kyle Busch Motorsports (Corey Heim) were knocked out of the owner playoffs. Preece had won the pole in the #17 but started at the rear due to unapproved adjustments.

All thirty-six trucks finished the race, which had never been achieved by the series at Homestead. The previous best came at the 2007 and 2016 races which saw one retirement each (Jacques Villeneuve crashed out in 2007 while Ryan Truex suffered an engine failure in 2016).

Race results