Lack Of Short-Run Speed Dooms Majeski’s Derby Hopes

Ty Majeski (Jason Reasin photo)

PENSACOLA, Fla. – As the sun began to set Sunday night at Five Flags Speedway after the 57th annual Snowball Derby, Ty Majeski stood near the tech shed deep in thought.

For more than three quarters of the crown jewel super late model race, a second straight and third overall win for the recently-crowned NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion seemed virtually inevitable.

After all, Majeski had earned the pole Friday night in near track-record fashion and led a race-high 192 laps in his familiar No. 91 iRacing.com Ford by the time the final stint went green at the historic half-mile short track.

Yet for all his dominance, Majeski’s quest to become just the second driver in history to win the Derby three or more times came undone in the closing stages as Kaden Honeycutt aced a sprint to the finish to steal the Tom Dawson Trophy from Majeski’s grasp.

With a car that longtime crew chief and car builder Toby Nuttleman barely adjusted on throughout the 300-lap race, Majeski looked largely untouchable as he lapped cars and held his nearest opposition at arm’s length.

But a final caution with 28 laps left – when Noah Gragson spun on the frontstretch – led to a sequence of pit stops where Majeski asked for four tires but no changes, believing his car would hold on plenty well enough after he’d opened up a lead of more than four seconds the run prior.

In hindsight, a lack of that final adjustment might have been Majeski’s undoing, as his car remained stable while Honeycutt gained enough speed with a slight air pressure tweak to take off and run away over the final 19 circuits.

Once Honeycutt got into clean air, he drove on to the win, while Majeski ended up fading to third and was 1.702 seconds adrift at the checkered flag. Remarkably, it was the lowest he ran all race long.

The end result left Majeski as puzzled as it did disappointed, as he believed he had the car to beat throughout the week.

“I don’t know,” admitted Majeski when asked what happened over the final 21 laps. “We were just a little bit off on the short run all weekend, really. Yes, we sat on the pole, but that was in different conditions on Friday night and in race trim we never really saw that raw speed in this car.

“The Snowball is an interesting race because it’s long runs most of the day, but it always seems to come down to a 20-lap shootout or so, and you have to have a good enough long-run car to keep yourself in the game … but a good enough short-run car – or the right adjustments – to make your car go at the end,” he explained. “Kaden was just a bit better than we were on the short run all day, and that’s what it ultimately came down to.

“We just really weren’t in the game at the end.”

Statistically, Sunday was Majeski’s most dominant Snowball Derby performance in 11 appearances, even though he wasn’t the one celebrating in victory lane.

Majeski’s 192 circuits in front were a career-high for the 30-year-old from Seymour, Wis., who eclipsed 500 laps led in his Derby career and now has six podium finishes in Five Flags’ most prestigious race.

He just didn’t lead the lap that paid the money this year, unfortunately.

“We had great long run speed all week long. … That was just our strong suit. You have to have balance … and I felt like if I could have fired off [on the final restart] the way I did in the run before when I took the lead on the top, I feel like we could have won,” Majeski lamented. “It just wasn’t the same at the end.

“We didn’t change too much, and I really hate blaming a set of tires … my gut tells me it wasn’t that. It just came down to a portion of the race where he was better than I was. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”

Though Sunday’s outcome wasn’t the one Majeski hoped for, it hasn’t diminished his love for the Derby or his desire to return again and try to move closer to all-time wins leader Rich Bickle, who topped the super late model classic a record five times.

He’s still as fired up as ever about the first week of December in Pensacola, Fla.

“I love having the opportunity to come down and race the Snowball Derby,” Majeski said. “It’s such a challenge, and I always say that you can’t ever be fast enough to win this thing, because there’s always so many things that can happen and so many ways this race changes from start to finish.

“To have as dominant a car as we did at certain times in the race and not win is tough. I felt like we had a couple tenths on the field at the end of runs, and that’s really hard to do here,” he added. “It’s not too often you get race cars with that much of a gap on the competition, and it’s more of a bummer not to win when you have one like that.

“It just wasn’t our day. But we’ll be back again.”