After a rough Friday night in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, five-time ASA Midwest Tour champion Ty Majeski came back to the “old cornfield” to turn his Memorial Day weekend around within 24 hours.
He had no problem doing that on Saturday as he won his third Salute the Troops 100 at Jefferson Speedway in Jefferson, Wisconsin. His third win in a row to start off the 2024 season for the ASA Midwest Tour.
“Jefferson is a cool track, always has been one of my favorites ever since I ran here in my rookie season in the Big 8 Series,” the five-time ASA Midwest Tour champion said after the race.
“I love coming back here when I have the opportunity to do it. This thing was good tonight. We were flogging on it all night. We actually didn’t have feel I wanted too until race time. We made good adjustments throughout the day, and when we hit our cars right that is the result.”
The Seymour, Wisconsin driver qualified seventh, but fast qualifier Levon Van Der Geest rolled a two creating a nine-car invert allowing Majeski to start on inside of the second row.
Defending ASAMT champion Gabe Sommers led the field to the green flag for the main event and led the first two laps until the first caution waved on lap three for a multi-car incident in turns one and two. Eddie Hoffman, Stephen Scheel, Ryan Farrell, and Joe Valento were some involved in the early accident.
On the restart, Majeski started on the outside of Sommers and it only took a lap for him to take over the lead on lap four.
A lap later, a big incident took place in turns three and four when Max Kahler appeared to get into the back of Mitch Haver going into turn three causing Haver to spin, collecting about a half a dozen cars including former Salute the Troops 100 winner Paul Shafer Jr., Kody King, Jordan Devoy, and Brent Edmunds.
After a brief red flag to clean up, Majeski would continue to lead and remain unchallenged after a few more restarts, easily gaining a car length going down the backstretch on each restart and stretching it out.
Behind him, the action was great side-by-side racing as fans watched Van Der Geest and Sommers challenge for the second spot with Van Der Geest getting the spot on lap 55. But the gap was too wide for him to close in on Majeski to challenge for the checkered flag.
Majeski would cruise to a win by 3.759 second victory over Van Der Geest.
“I have always loved this track, and its one of my favorite tracks. We kind of had some bad luck here in the past. We had a third place run going about two years ago and got into a racing incident, but always loved racing here, its a driver’s track,” Van Der Geest said after the race. “Just really proud of my crew today for giving a car that went from ninth to second. Overall, I gave it my best and second place is nothing to complain about.”
Van Der Geest’s fast time was 13.506 seconds.
Three-time ASAMT champion and three-time Jefferson Speedway champion Casey Johnson had a up and down race. He was up to third early then fell back to eighth, then got up to fifth then fell back to eighth, until he was finally able to move forward and get by Sommers for third with five laps to go and get the final podium position.
“We got some early track position and we tried the outside on a restart and got freight trained, there was nothing out there,” Johnson explained. “I had to fight my way all the up to get third. So all in all it’s not a bad finish, but definitely not what I was looking for.”
Johnson was hoping his experience at Wisconsin’s Action Track would have helped him tonight.
“The track just doesn’t race like it did before,” Johnson said. “I don’t know if its something with our new tires or rubber or what. We were way lower in three and four than we have ever been so the racing was just goofy and we just made the best of it.
Sommers finished fourth with Riley Stenjem rounding out the top five.
Brock Behnke of Roscoe, IL, took control of the 50 lap Sportsman feature and never relinquished it to claim the victory. Starting outside Matthew Thoma in row one, Behnke moved ahead following an early caution. Thoma dropped in line behind the leader as they both moved out to a healthy advantage while the battle for position raged behind them.
Behnke remained in control throughout the remainder of the feature event, picking up the win with Thoma coming home second. Kyle Chwala, Jason Thoma and Nick Bruley completed the top five behind them.
Janesville’s Tony Ciano captured the 4 lap Hobby Stock feature event. Chuck Egli grabbed the early lead from the front row until a caution on lap three slowed the pace. Egli and Steve Dobbratz brought the field back to green with Egli once again taking the point.
Ciano charged up alongside Dobbratz, taking the second spot on lap six. Ciano continued moving forward, drawing even on the high side of Egli on lap eight. One circuit later, Ciano was out front along and beginning to pull away. Ciano continued to show the way until the field slowed for another yellow flag on lap 31.
This time, it was Ciano and Shane Strothman leading the pack to green. After a brief battle, Ciano reclaimed the top spot and drove away to claim the checkers. Rounding out the top five were Strothman, Hunter Milbrath, Avery Linnerud and Hunter Robinson.
In 25-lap Bandit feature action, it was Tom Schuette of Fort Atkinson driving away with the win. Caden Pankow lead early from the pole with the filed lining up behind him.
At the midway point of the feature, Schuette took to the high side and began making his way to the front. Schuette drove even with Pankow on lap 13, stealing the top spot and driving out to a comfortable advantage.
Trent Rueth made a late race pass for second, but ran out of time in a quest to catch Schuette. At the checkers it was Schuette for the win followed by Rueth, Mason Wilcott, Max Larson and Ryan Oetzel.
Most Popular
Comments / 0