Majeski Wins Pole for LIUNA! 175 at Milwaukee Mile
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
For Seymour, Wisconsin’s Ty Majeski, winning a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Milwaukee Mile would likely be one of the biggest of his career. Saturday, Majeski took a step towards that goal by winning the pole for Sunday’s LIUNA! 175.
Makeski topped the speed chart with a lap of :29.815-seconds, 122.556 miles-per-hour in his No. 98 Road Ranger Ford F-150. For Majeski, who enters NASCAR’s Truck Series playoffs on a two-race winning streak, it couldn’t have been drawn up any better.
“No, I don't think so,” Majeski said. “So far, we're a lot better than last year. That's for sure, starting on the pole. So excited to get going this weekend. Obviously, home state race for me, a lot of friends, family, former sponsors, current sponsors will be in the stands, which I hear is a pretty good crowd, so expecting quite a few people tomorrow. And yeah, I'm excited after some time on the track today.”
But just posting the quickest time in qualifying doesn’t guarantee a trip to victory lane. For Majeski, having a good handling truck will be key to a successful race day.
“Your truck's gonna have to be pretty versatile. Obviously, this track is pretty wide. We saw it last year, all the way from the rumble strips, all the way up, two or three grooves even above the sort of the bottom of the white asphalt. You're gonna have three, four or five grooves of racing here. So you're gonna have to have a truck that can go anywhere, maneuver anywhere.
“Guys will be searching around just as much as you are trying to find grip. That's what's cool about this place, is it gives drivers options. And when we have options, it creates really good racing.”
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
With only 10-minutes separating qualifying from a 20-minute practice session, Majeski didn’t have a lot of time to assess the competition. But he and crew chief Joe Shear, Jr. learned enough in that brief time to make adjustments that helped win the pole and may prove to be beneficial for Sunday’s race as well.
“I think we we learned some with our truck in qualifying. Actually, typically, you don't learn too much from qualifying, but I think with our package, the way that it is, we made some pretty good adjustments to it that I think we can carry into tomorrow, which I'm pretty excited about. I was actually a little bit iffy about my truck in race trim. I think we can take some of those qualifying adjustments and apply them to race trim and now give us a really good truck for tomorrow.
“I didn't quite know what it was going to do until I made the lap,” Majeski continued. “You don't have a lot of time to think about really what's going on during practice. It’s sometimes when you get two guys like Joe and I to debrief, and we start bouncing ideas off each other and take into account this type of racetrack and our package and kind of what's going on. And you can come up with some pretty good stuff sometimes, sometimes not. But most of the time, we make our truck a lot better from practice to the race, and I think that's one of our strengths.”
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
According to Majeski, the track position that goes along with winning the pole is a big deal at the Milwaukee Mile.
“Track position is important in any race, but really here at The Mile. It's a fast enough track where aero matters, but it also loses enough grip where handling matters just as much, so you have to have all aspects of your truck right to win here.
“And I think we missed that last year, a little bit. I felt like we came we kind of understood what the issues were last year, and went to work over the course of last year and came up with a pregame package.
“So I'm excited about it. I'm excited to see what it's got. And we're hoping to apply something like this to Phoenix later in the year, which obviously is a championship race, and hopefully we can put a good playoff run together and be in it.”
Majeski and the rest of the 36-truck field will take the green flag, Sunday, at 3:18 PM.