Ty Majeski missed a NASCAR Truck Series Championship Race production day in North Carolina last Tuesday so he could vote at home in Wisconsin, incurring a $12,500 fine as a result, but has the full support of his team in making that decision.
Majeski ended up winning the championship over the weekend and signaled an intent to appeal the penalty but his team owners say they knew about that decision and endorsed it. For its part, a NASCAR official said neither Thorsport Racing nor Majeski signaled that there would be a conflict and that the sanctioning body would have worked around a voting schedule.
Majeski still lives in Wisconsin and routinely commutes to Sandusky, Ohio where he drives for owners Duke and Rhonda Thorson, and team manager Allison, their daughter, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization.
“That’s something between him and my dad, but again, I think let’s focus on, first of all, we are all lucky to live in the United States of America, and we get the right to vote,” the younger Thorson said. “If it wasn’t that we didn’t live in America, there’s a reason why everybody is coming here. There’s a reason why there are so many fans of NASCAR.
“So, first, we’re going to respect his right to be a U.S. citizen. It’s unfortunate that there was media on the same day as election day, but election days don’t happen every day. I think if I were NASCAR, I’d harness that our champion tonight is a proud American. He’s a great guy. He’s happy to be here. And, of course, any other time, Ty, I know, he also did media via Zoom, phone calls that day.
“If you look at the record with all of our other drivers, we’re definitely present (for most NASCAR commitments) and we agree about being present and being a united force with all of our organizations. Again, we support him being an American citizen too.”
Majeski said before the championship race that he told the team.
“Yeah, we certainly knew about it,” Majeski said. “I didn’t specifically have much communication with NASCAR prior. I let everybody internally at ThorSport handle those conversations prior to not being there on Tuesday, so I feel like they knew our position and it’s kind of unprecedented. This has never happened before.
“Election Day, everyone knew it was Election Day for a long time. It’s unfortunate circumstances for everybody. I don’t think anybody wants to be put in that position, but we have to have a free country to race in and that’s just part of being a U.S. citizen, so I wanted to exercise that right. I didn’t know I was going to in the Championship 4 until a few days prior. I’ve always in my whole life been an election day vote guy. I’ve never done an absentee ballot. I wanted to make sure my vote was counted.”