Ty Majeski
The Super Late Model division hit the track for the final night of the World Series of Asphalt at the New Smyrna Speedway on Saturday night in the Orange Blossom 100. At the end of the night it was Ty Majeski who would receive the accolades as the victor of the main event in what proved to be a milestone victory for the Wisconsin native.
The win came just one night after Majeski ended his run at Daytona International Speedway in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race on his roof after being caught in a wreck not of his making.
Derek Griffith was crowned as the champion of the nine-night series of races.
Bubba Pollard was fastest in qualifying when he posted a lap in 17.494 seconds around the half-mile paved oval. That time beat out Derek Griffith, Jesse Love Jr., Brad May, Ty Majeski, Ryan Moore, Daniel Dye, Anthony Sergi, T.J. Duke and Sammy Smith.
Anthony Sergi would start the feature race from the pole as a result of the post-qualifying invert with Daniel Dye, Ryan Moore, Ty Majeski, Brad May, Derek Griffith and Bubba Pollard lining up in order on the starting grid.
At the start of the 100-lap feature the car of Sergi went to the early lead with Dye, Majeski, Moore and Love trailing in his tire tracks. Majeski immediately moved to challenge for the runner-up spot and by the third lap with Dye falling back to third.
Knowing there would be at least one competition caution during the race, driver appeared to go into conservation mode while clicking off laps in the process.
By lap 20 two drivers who were thought of as pre-race favorites, fast qualifier Bubba Pollard and Wednesday night winner Stephen Nasse, were not making much progress toward the front of the field as Pollard ran 7th while Nasse was mired in the 13th spot.
And things got a bit worse for Pollard one lap later when Griffith slipped by to take that 7th position.
On lap 34 things took a disastrous turn for two-time Snowball Derby winner Augie Grill as he raced for the 12th position with Nasse and Jake Garcia. Contact between Nasse and Garcia caused the No. 35 machine to slide high just as Grill had made a move in that direction. The No. 112 was forced into the outside wall at the exit of turn four which caused heavy damage to that ride.
During that caution period teams were allowed o perform controlled pit stops with those who chose to receive service from their crews guaranteed not to lose a position relative to the other drivers who pitted.
On the ensuing restart Pollard moved by Griffith to retake the seventh position while Moore worked around Dye to capture third.
During the middle stretches of the race Mjeski began applying pressure to Sergi in an attempt to seize the lead of the race. Lap after lap the No. 91 would look to the inside of the No. 20 to no avail. At the same time, May, and eventually Love closed in to make it a four car fight for the top spot on the scoreboard.
Ty Majeski scored his 100th career win on Saturday at New Smyrna
On lap 71 Majeski opted to move to the outside of Sergi as their cars roared through turns three and four. As they raced onto the front stretch Majeski surged to the front of the field with May then looking to take the runner-up spot from Sergi.
A lap 79 yellow flag set up a final dash to the finish. Over that final segment Majeski slipped away from his pursuers while Griffith and Pollard looked to move into the top-5.
In the end, however, Majeski went unchallenged on his way to the finish line.
“We worked on this thing after we found a couple of things wrong with the rear end on Tuesday night,” Majeski said in his winner’s interview. “We obviously had a rough one last night. I wish we could have finished that race. I had a good opportunity there. We came back and rebounded really strong tonight.”
The winner of his 100th feature race went on to point out why he had difficulty passing by Sergi during the middle stages.
“Man, I was loosing brakes there when I was racing with Sergi,” Majeski explained. “I was trying to manage it. It(the brake pedal) was going almost all the way to the floor. I was about to actually let the 9 by but I took a desperation shot to the top and it stuck. I was pumping the brakes really hard trying to get the thing to hang in there. The brakes came back during that caution. The car was pretty decent tonight and we got it done.”
Feature Finish: 1. Ty Majeski, 2. Brad May, 3. Jesse Love Jr., 4. Derek Griffith, 5. Bubba Pollard, 6. Sammy Smith, 7. Ryan Moore, 8. Anthony Sergi, 9. Justin Modeik, 10. Daniel Dye, 11. Stephen Nasse, 12. Todd Stone, 13. Jake Garcia, 14. Colin Garrett, 15. Jerry Artuso, 16. Trey Bayne, 17. Austin MacDonald, 18. Gus Dean, 19. Brad Kossow, 20. Steve Weaver, 21. T.J. Duke, 22. Patrick Thomas, 23. Kyle Sieg, 24. Augie Grill, 25. Vincent Staggs