Late Caution Foils Ty Majeski’s Shot at Darlington Truck Win

While Ty Majeski didn’t lead the most laps or sweep the stages at Darlington Raceway, he was definitely the one to beat late.

Unfortunately, it didn’t come to be thanks to a late caution.

When a big crash at the beginning of the final stage took out Corey Heim, the dominant driver of the night, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Darlington was open for the taking Friday night (May 10).

While Christian Eckes was in the catbird’s seat, as he had largely run second most of the night, the handling on his No. 19 fell off and allowed Majeski and Grant Enfinger to pass him. When Enfinger had to pit to remove a windshield tearoff from his grill, that left Majeski with no one to challenge him.

“I thought we obviously had the best long run truck here tonight,” Majeski told Frontstretch after the race.

By the time the race was within 10 laps of conclusion, Majeski had nearly a six-second lead over second-place Ross Chastain, and almost 14 seconds on third-place Jake Garcia.

He was cruising to his first victory of the year until Jack Wood, who was involved in the big one earlier, smacked the wall and brought out a caution with six to go. That sent the race into overtime.

All hope was not lost for Majeski, as he was able to beat Chastain off of pit road on the final stop. He chose the top for the final restart, and as a bonus, he had his teammate Garcia behind him to help push him into turn 1. Unfortunately for the No. 98, he spun the tires on the restart, while Chastain, with help from Colby Howard, was able to get a great restart.

“Obviously probably should’ve taken the bottom,” Majeski said. “We were going back and forth on the radio. The data shows take the top, so that’s the safe route. However, I got the lead on the bottom on a restart. Then I was leading and got beat on the bottom on the next restart.

“So I saw the bottom work twice, and I should’ve went with my gut, and I didn’t.”

As Chastain sailed into turn 1 with the lead, Nick Sanchez, running fifth, attempted to take Howard and Majeski three-wide. Sanchez and Howard made contact, forcing the latter up the hill into Majeski. The stack up caused Garcia to hit the wall, costing him what would have been his best finish of 2024 by a long shot.

The move allowed Chastain to pull away for the win. While Sanchez finished second, Howard, in the midst of a career day, was none too pleased with the move.

“I think we had a top five…