The 2023 NASCAR Trucks Series season was a matter of timing for Ty Majeski who fell short of a second consecutive championship race appearance but was still satisfied with the performance of his No. 98 program.
It was an eventful playoff push.
Majeski dominated the playoff opener at Indianapolis Raceway Park to advance into the Round of 8 but crew chief Joe Shear was immediately busted the next week at Milwaukee Mile for making use of a tire bleeder.
Even the timing of that penalty was fortuitous as the 75-point reduction was made moot by already advancing into the second round. It was effectively a five-point penalty when factoring in the lost playoff points.
That wasn’t what ultimately cost them a return trip to the final four though. They came up eight points short.
“Racing is a humbling sport,” Majeski told Sportsnaut. “You go from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows within a couple of weeks. You just have to know how to manage that and keep your team motivated.
“Overall, obviously, the goal is to make it to Phoenix with a shot to win the championship. Honestly, we just peaked at the wrong time this year. We were plenty capable of making it into the Final Four.
“We could have won Bristol and cut a tire racing for the lead. Finished second in both stages at Talladega, was running really well, and got in a wreck. Went to Homestead with a longshot and still were only a handful of points out from making it.”
So, despite the penalty and the possible distractions, they still had a shot.
“If you take out our penalty and one bad stage and now we’re in Phoenix,” he added. “You have to execute in each race that round and we only executed in one of them and that was the difference in making it or not this year.
“Obviously, somewhat of a disappointing ending but happy overall with our speed and everyone at ThorSport winning a championship with Ben and those guys.”
Majeski had just the one victory but otherwise an impressive season based on overall pace. His driver rating, best articulated as a quarterback rating but for drivers, was third best (99.7) behind Corey Heim and Christian Eckes.
In other words, Majeski was a top-five threat virtually every weekend.
Even more impressive is that Majeski contended for wins each race in the Truck Series while also racing the full 10-race ASA national Super Late Model championship. He won the inaugural title to complete a widely successful season in which he was basically racing two categories over the course of the entire season.
“I’ll be honest, we weren’t planning on running the whole series to start off. We were committing to racing through Kaukauna, which would’ve been the first seven,” said Majeski. “I knew the last three were going to be difficult for me to get to logistically with my race team. Toby (Nuttleman)’s our only full-time guy; we’re lucky to have a full-time guy but the rest of our guys have full-time jobs so it’s difficult to get to all these races. We were able to put together the last three races and make it work from a personnel standpoint and logistically.”
It helps that Majeski was afforded the opportunity to be a full-time racer the past two seasons after working in the Thorsport shop as an engineer back in 2021.
“It was a lot easier this year because I’m no longer a full-time engineer at ThorSport,” he added. “I’m able to spend more time at the shop with Toby and Joe (Shear Jr.) and my engineer had the Truck side handled. It’s just a balance and making sure you’re putting the right amount of effort into all facets, whether it’s my family, the Late Model side or my Truck side.
“Making sure I spend enough time at home but still putting full effort into everything that I do. If I couldn’t have put a full effort into running ASA then I wouldn’t do it. And if I couldn’t put a full effort into running the Truck Series with running ASA, I wouldn’t have done it either. At the end of the day my priorities lie with the Truck Series, that’s where I make my living. It was making sure I spent enough time at ThorSport and with Toby back at home and I feel like I found a pretty good balance with that this year and had a lot of success in all fronts.”
Majeski also closed out the season with a victory in the prestigious Snowball Derby — the biggest race of the year for pavement Super Late Models.
Majeski is back at Thorsport in 2024 and hopes to keep racing the Super Late Model at a high level as well.
“I really look forward to doing a lot of the same stuff,” Majeski said. “I really enjoy what I’m doing with my career in general, being with ThorSport with the Truck Series and being able to run a decent amount of Super Late Model races.
“It’s really been a dream come true for me. Duke and Rhonda (Thorson) really enjoy me going out and running with ASA and it’s something they get invested in and watch and follow. It all works, and I hope to be doing something very similar next year.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.