Ty Majeski had to settle for second behind Steven Wallace on Opening Night. Saturday night, he got the shot at Wallace in the closing laps and pulled out the victory on Night 2 of the 50th Annual World Series of Asphalt Racing at New Smyrna Speedway
Wallace settled for second ahead of defending World Series champion Zane Smith.
“It’s huge,” said Majeski. “Last year we won on Saturday night and had the off day on Sunday, and kind of relaxed and thought about what we had to do to make the car a little bit faster. And hopefully we’ll come out firing on Monday.”
The 21-year-old from Seymour, Wisconsin, also won the 2015 Florida Governor’s Cup in November.
Majeski closed in on Wallace as a long green-flag run ate up most of the second half of the race. But a late caution slowed Majeski’s advantage.
“I started to get a run on him, he started to get real loose off in the center,” said Majeski. “I got a run on him and unfortunately, the caution came out. Definitely not what I wanted to see. “The outside on the restarted are real critical here. I knew I was going to be stuck on the bottom.”
“These 35 lap races, your car’s got to be free to maintain a go, but it’s just finding that fine line,” Wallace said. “First and second is pretty damn good. It’s just when I got down in Turn 1, Ty ran up there and smashed my left rear and kind of moved me up the track. But that’s just good short track racing. But overall, not too bad.”
Majeski, however, was able to track Wallace back down in the closing laps and make the pass with two to go.
“We’ve got to work on our car a little bit, we’re going to tune it up,” said Wallace, “We’re going to work on the car, get it all cleaned up, prepared and ready for Kill Mode on Monday.”
Two red flags slowed the first half of the race and attrition took out many of the contenders. In fact, Smith cut a tire under one caution and was able to come back for a podium spot.
“I didn’t think we had a top three there – especially after we blew a right rear,” said Smith. “But we came back. We restarted 10th and just made our way back up.”
Derek Thorn, who started on the pole, finished fourth and Stephen Nasse was fifth.
Christian Eckes, Dalton Armstrong, Austin Nason, Garrett Hall and Tanner Gray completed the top 10.
Thorn managed to hold off a charging Daniel Keene Jr. in the last five laps to win the second Pro Late Model feature of the week.
Josh Todd kicked off the second night of the 50th Annual World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing by winning the Florida Modified feature.
Racing continues tomorrow, highlighted by NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Jet Tools 150 followed by the 50-lap Sportsman feature. Saturday’s racing, as well as Feb. 15-20, are airing live on FansChoice.TV, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET each night.
