AVONDALE, Ariz. — Ty Majeski showed up to Phoenix Raceway and pulled off one of the biggest beatdowns in the history of NASCAR’s Phoenix Championship Weekend.
Starting on the pole, Majeski led a whopping 132 of the 150 laps in Friday’s (Nov. 8) title race. He beat runner-up Corey Heim for the win by nearly four seconds to clinch his first series championship, back-to-back titles for ThorSport Racing and the fourth consecutive title in the series for Ford.
Heim led 16 laps, and he was the only driver that could contend with the No. 98 truck. But in the middle of the final stage, Heim’s title hopes took a hit when he was penalized for a restart penalty by moving out of line before he reached the start/finish line.
“I was really frustrated at first because I didn’t really understand [the penalty],” Heim said. “I haven’t really seen a replay of it yet, so I guess I would have to go look at it. It’s hard for me to sit here and criticize without ever seeing it.
“… I was surprised at first because I no idea I did anything wrong to begin with, but I certainly could have.”
.@NASCARONFOX takes a closer look at the penalty issued to the No. 11. #Championship4 https://t.co/PX635eTyni pic.twitter.com/W1OENW3xPT
— NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks (@NASCAR_Trucks) November 9, 2024
Heim drove all the way back to second after the penalty and finished just under four seconds behind Majeski. But even if he wasn’t penalized, Heim didn’t feel good about his chances of taking the race win from the No. 98 team.
“They were unbelievably lights-out the whole race,” Heim said. “From the get-go I felt like we fired off pretty free in stage one, and we were able to reel him back in. He seemed to struggle in traffic a little bit.
“Once they adjusted on it and once the caution started cycling to the point where we never really hit a lot of lap traffic, it was about over for me.”
The good news for Heim was that he was in his own zip code against the rest of the field. The bad news for Heim was that the final driver to squeak into the Championship 4 was in his own universe.
“[Majeski] was probably two-tenths better than me a lap me pushing 100%,” Heim said. “Then the unfortunate part is I feel like our Tundra TRD Pro is really good. We were probably two-tenths better than the guys behind us.”
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