One Week Later, Snowball Derby Win a Relief for Majeski

Going into the 53^rd Annual Snowball Derby last weekend, Ty Majeski admitted that he had probably found every way to lose the biggest Super Late Model race in the country in six previous starts. After 300 laps last Sunday afternoon at Five Flags Speedway, the Wisconsin driver found a way to win the Tom Dawson Trophy.

After leading the most laps in 2019 before a late-race incident ended his race, Majeski led just 24 laps, his lowest mark since his debut in 2014. However, those included the final three laps after a hard-fought battle with Derek Thorn.

Eight days after the biggest win of his career, the day’s event has sunk in with more relief than anything else.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s relieving for sure. I say it again and again, we had been so close to winning that race. I was certainly excited after the race, but I was relieved as well,” Majeski told Speed51’s “The Bullring.” “We had been so close to winning that race, we figured out every way to lose it. We were able to utilize everything we had learned over the years, what not to do, and we were able to put it together.

“It was such a huge win for all of us. It’s been one we’ve been trying to get for a while. We’ve been so close, I’m just proud of our team and sponsors. I’m very happy we were finally able to bring it home.”

It was the third straight year Majeski was in contention late in the Snowball Derby, finishing second to Noah Gragson in 2018 followed by a late incident last year. He found himself in the same situation again on Sunday, this time going head-to-head with Derek Thorn, who had set the Snowball Derby record for most laps led in a single race.

“Under the yellow, what I do as a race car driver is try to play out different scenarios that could happen in your head and decide what you will do in each of those scenarios to try and win the race. I’ll be honest with you, one of those scenarios was not Derek clearing me on the outside. He did a great job on that restart, he was able to get the top rolling really well and was able to just about clear me on that restart.

“It was certainly a great battle between us. He had the fastest race car pretty much all weekend and we were able to peak at the right time on that long run,” he added. “We were able to get in front of him just before that final comp caution and control the restart, which was huge.”

He was just as excited to win the race for Crew Chief Toby Nuttleman and their crew as he was for himself. The two have been racing together since 2014, with four ARCA Midwest Tour championships and countless race wins across the country.

“We’ve won a lot of big races together and probably the closest one to this was winning the Oktoberfest 200 in 2016. Toby has been a regular at LaCrosse for 30-40 years and he had not won the Oktoberfest 200 on Sunday. We finally did it for him and that was a very special win, this one is right there with that one for sure. The biggest race in the country, everyone’s there. NASCAR champions, Truck Series champions, the list goes on and on. It was definitely cool to finally come out on top and get the win not only for myself, but my entire crew.

“I don’t know if you guys saw the video I put out of them celebrating as I crossed the start-finish line, that’s what it’s all about right there. It’s cool to see the emotion because I never get to see that, I’m always in the car. It was really cool to see that and the reaction after we won.”

Click here to watch a replay of “The Bullring.”

-Story by: Koty Geyer, Speed51 National Correspondent – Twitter: @kgeyer3
-Photo Credit: Speed51 Photo