Ty Majeski took the lead on a restart with eight laps remaining in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series regular season finale Clean Harbors 250 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway to hoist his second consecutive race trophy.
Majeski’s No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford led Christian Eckes’ No. 19 Chevy across the finish line by a slight 0.936s to earn the win and vindicate a gut-wrenching loss at the three-quarter mile Richmond track from a year ago when he dominated the race only to lose the lead with four laps remaining.
That tough loss was still very much on the mind of the 29-year old Wisconsin native this weekend. And he nearly gave this one away too after receiving a pit road penalty when a tire got loose on his first pit stop during the Stage 1 break.
“This feels good. We’ve had great ThorSport trucks here at Richmond the last two years, but found different ways to lose them (races) and tried to do that again tonight ’’ said Majeski, who now has five career wins in the series.
“We really need to clean that stuff up.’’
Eckes, driver of the No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet officially claimed the regular season championship in winning Saturday night’s opening stage – his series best eighth stage victory of the season.
“Confidence is high for sure,’’ said Eckes, a three-race winner in 2024. “I feel like we’re in a better position than we were last year and I thought we were in a pretty good position last year too. Real proud of the team. We didn’t have quite what we needed today but proud of everybody and ready to get these next seven races underway.”
For the first time in the modern Playoff format, a driver raced his way into championship contention in the last cutoff race. Daniel Dye, 20, finished eighth in the No. 43 McAnally-Hilgemann Chevrolet – good enough to put him in the Playoffs by 12-points over TRICON Garage Racing’s Tanner Gray, who finished 12th.
“Just all the hard work these guys have put in and it’s really good to validate myself and the work I’ve put in to change up what I’ve been doing,’’ Dye said. “It’s so cool to have our No. 43 in the Playoffs.”