Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park

Ty Majeski’s victory in Friday night’s TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park wasn’t the sort of dominating performance he enjoyed last year—until the final stage of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race.

Majeski overcame a restart violation on Lap 50 that sent him to the rear of the field but rallied to defend his 2023 victory at the 0.686-mile short track. The driver of the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford earned his first victory of the season and the fourth of his career.

Majeski, who swept the stages and led 179 laps in last year’s win, was penalized for jumping the restart after the first caution of the race for Ty Dillon’s spin in Turn 3 on Lap 43. He scored no points in Stage 1, but by the time the second stage ended, Majeski had charged to third.

Sixteen laps after the restart for the final stage, Majeski took the lead for the first time, using the lapped truck of Thad Moffitt as a pick and charging past Eckes through Turns 1 and 2.

The Seymour, Wisconsin, driver led the final 56 of 200 laps and took the checkered flag 4.129 seconds ahead of Eckes.

“It’s huge,” Majeski said. “Obviously, I made a little bit of a mistake. It was probably a little bit of a close call on that restart. I had to pony up and get it back. Obviously, when you make a mistake as a driver, you drive a little bit harder to make up for it, but these guys had my back—awesome pit stops.

“It’s been an up-and-down year. We’ve had the speed to win. Just haven’t been able to put it together, had some bad luck along the way, some of it self-inflicted. But, man, so proud of this Road Ranger group.”

Grant Enfinger finished third after leading 71 laps. Tyler Ankrum was fourth, followed by Layne Riggs, Sammy Smith, Luke Fenhaus, pole winner Rajah Caruth, Dean Thompson and Nick Sanchez.

Fenhaus’ seventh-place result was his best in three Truck Series starts.

By the time he took the checkered flag, Majeski already had clinched a Playoff spot on points, leaving three berths still available in the postseason, with the Aug. 10 race at Richmond left to decide the final Playoff grid.

With a 20th-place finish on Friday, Tanner Gray took over the 10th and final Playoff-eligible position from Daniel Dye, who came home 27th after an unscheduled pit stop on Lap 81. Dye trails Gray by five points entering the last regular-season race.

Five-time race winner Corey Heim finished 17th, a lap down, after contact from Eckes’ No. 19 Chevrolet cut his left-front tire and forced him to the pits under caution on Lap 88. Forced to use his last set of tires prematurely, Heim finished second in Stage 2 on the fresh rubber but faded in the final stage.

“I just misjudged the straightaway,” said Eckes, who led a race-high 73 laps. “He’s got every right to be mad.”

Eckes retained the series lead by 50 points over second-place Heim.

Ty Majeski’s timing was impeccable.

Winless this season before Friday night’s TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Majseki put an old-fashioned beating on the rest of the field in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff opener.

The driver of the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford cemented a spot in the Playoffs’ Round of 8 in dominating fashion, leading 179 of 200 laps, sweeping the first two stages of the race and beating pole winner and runner-up Christian Eckes to the finish line by 3.422 seconds.

That was the smallest margin Majeski held at the end of any stage. He held a 3.904-secodn advantage over eventual eighth-place finisher Corey Heim at the finish of Stage 1. He was up by six seconds over Heim before the second stage ended under caution for Chris Hacker’s spin on the backstretch.

Clearly, the short-track ace was in his element at the .686-mile speedway.

“I’m proud of the effort, but this is just the start of our Playoff run,” said Majeski, who failed to win with the fastest truck two weekends ago at Richmond.

In that race, Majeski sped on pit road, and his team failed to cover a late green-flag pit stop by race winner Carson Hocevar. In contrast, the effort of the entire No. 98 team was impeccable on Friday night.

“Mistakes really cost us (at Richmond),” Majeski said. “We learned from those. Obviously, tonight we were in a really similar situation, and we were able to execute on all fronts. The pit crew was great, (crew chief) Joe (Shear Jr.) made great calls, and I felt like I executed pretty good on the restarts.

“We put it all together as a race team tonight, and I’m pretty proud of that.”

Hocevar came home fourth behind non-Playoff driver Layne Riggs. Reigning series champion Zane Smith was fifth after starting from the rear of the field because of unapproved adjustments to his No. 38 Ford.

William Sawalich was a career-best sixth in his fourth Truck Series start, followed by fellow non-Playoff driver Rajah Caruth. Heim in eighth was penalized for too many men over the wall late in the race. Three-time series champion Matt Crafton and Matt DiBenedetto completed the top 10.

The race also was a triumph for another driver who never led a lap and finished 19^th in the first car one lap down. Shane Van Gisbergen, who took the NASCAR world by storm by winning the Chicago Street Race in his only Cup start, avoided all trouble and got plenty of seat time in his first trip around an oval.

“It was awesome,” said the New Zealander. “With 10 to go, I finally dropped off the lead lap. “I had a ball. It was awesome racing with people, a lot of fun… I’m living the dream, it was really cool, and everyone was respectful. It was awesome.”

Heim, the regular-season champion, retained the series lead by three points over Majeski.

After the next two races—at the Milwaukee Mile (Aug. 27) and Kansas Speedway (Sept. 8)—the Playoff field will be cut from 10 drivers to eight. The two drivers currently below the cut line are Crafton and DiBenedetto, who trail eighth-place Nick Sanchez by two points and three points, respectively.

Charging to the front on fresh tires after the TSport 200 went to overtime on Friday night, Enfinger passed Zane Smith for the lead on Lap 206 of 207 and went on to win the first event in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoff.

In the return of the series to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park for the first time since 2011, Enfinger beat runner-up Ben Rhodes to the finish line by .477. Rhodes passed Smith on the final lap to secure the second spot.

With his first victory since 2020 and the seventh of his career, Enfinger gained automatic advancement to the second round of the Playoffs after a regular season that saw a lackluster performance by his GMS Racing team and a reunion with veteran crew chief Jeff Hensley before the July 9 race at Mid-Ohio.

It was Hensley who brought Enfinger to pit road for a tire change after Carson Hocevar knocked Colby Howard into the outside wall on Lap 191 of 200. That call proved decisive.

“We’ve just been off a little bit as an organization,” Enfinger said. “We’ve been working so hard because we’ve been sucking. It hurts to say it, but we’ve had a terrible season to this point. But we had a great Chevrolet all day.

“It felt like every time we got into the lead, a caution came out, and it put Hensley in a bad spot. I knew from experience to just trust his gut.”

Zane Smith held third in a finish that was not without controversy. The Playoff’s top seed entering the race, Smith had crowded Chandler Smith into the outside wall earlier in the event, damaging both trucks.

Zane Smith also sustained damage in a three-truck incident involving Lawless Allen and Chase Purdy, but he brought his No. 38 Ford to pit road for fresh tires on Lap 156 and worked his way forward over the closing 40 laps.

On the final restart on Lap 206, Zane Smith pinched eventual 10th-place finisher John Hunter Nemechek into the outside wall and took the top spot until Enfinger made the winning pass.

It was Nemechek, though, who sent the race to overtime when he spun race leader Taylor Gray in Turn 3 on Lap 199 of a scheduled 200.

Nemechek insisted the accident was unintentional.

“Sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield, and tonight we were the bug,” said Nemechek, who led a race-high 75 laps and won the first stage. “I made a mistake early on and spun myself, and we had a restart there at the end on old tires.

“Everybody had fresher tires. I tried driving down in the bottom of (Turn) 3 underneath the 17 (Gray), and I just kept sliding and accidentally got into his left rear. I tried to stay off him. That team has their opinion, I have my opinion, and I’m sure we’ll talk at some point.”

Playoff driver Stewart Friesen finished fourth behind Zane Smith, followed by Corey Heim, Tyler Ankrum and Layne Riggs. Playoff drivers Ty Majeski, Matt Crafton and Nemechek completed the top 10.

Those results left Crafton and 16th-place finisher Christian Eckes seven points below the current cut line. After the third race of the first round, the Playoff field will be trimmed from 10 drivers to eight. Hocevar is eighth in the standings, seven points to the good.