“Salute the Troops 100” at Jefferson Speedway
Ty Majeski came into the 2017 season with a small bucket list that he wanted to scratch off, a list of tracks that he has yet to win at in his stellar short track career. On Saturday night, he scratched Jefferson Speedway in Jefferson, Wisconsin off that list with his 15th victory in the tour by capturing the Salute the Troops 100.
As the first race of the night rolled out on the track, ARCAMT officials took look at radar and saw that rain was approaching the track. The promoters quickly made the call to line up the field and get ready for the 100-lap main event.
Andrew Morrissey paced the field in the early going of the main event until Austin Nason took over the top spot on lap 19. Nason’s lead only lasted for seven laps as Dalton Zehr would get by Nason on lap 27. Majeski, who started 12th, was up to third by lap 28.
On lap 41, Nason was fending off his second-place spot from Majeski until Nason was tapped by Justin Mondeik coming off turn two causing Nason to spin and bring out a caution.
Zehr elected to restart on the outside with Majeski on the inside. As the green flag waved, Majeski got a run on Zehr off turn two and took over the lead.
The final caution took place on lap 44 when Andrew Morrissey broke an oil line in turns three and four causing him to spin. Rich Schumann Jr., Travis Dassow and John DeAngelis were all caught up in a wreck behind a spinning Morrissey.
On the restart, Majeski would pull away from Zehr and Casey Johnson, who worked his way up to third.
From there, Majeski would not be contested for the lead as he went on to collect his 15th victory in the ARCA Midwest Tour, putting him one win away from tying Dan Fredrickson for the most wins in the tour.
Zehr would finish second with Johnson in third.
After the race, Majeski was happy to scratch Jefferson off the winless list.
“Two more to go,” Majeski exclaimed after the race. “We want to win the Slinger Nationals and get a victory at Golden Sands Speedway in Plover, Wisconsin. I think we will go up there on Monday and see if we can do that, if not we have the ARCA Midwest Tour race coming up there as well. It has been a small goal of mine and it is a testament to the team and I have been able to accomplish over the last three years.”
Zehr was pleased with his second-place performance and noted the progress that his team has been making after the first three races this season on the tour.
“I love making progress, I think we were seventh at Madison and finished fourth last week at State Park Speedway and today we were second,” Zehr said. “We are going to Marshfield next (where Zehr is the defending track champion) and that has been a strong track for me in the past. I am super happy that the car is in one piece and I had a great time racing at Jefferson today.”
Johnson came into today with a lot of momentum at his home track where he has 33 feature victories and three track titles. Even though he finished third, after the race he and his team were wondering what happened out there.
“I thought the thing would come around but it just got tight from the get go and I was waiting for it to come in and it just kept chattering tires and chattering tires,” Johnson explained after the race. “I don’t know, we just need to take it back to the shop and put it on the scales and see what the problem was tonight.”
Paul Shafer Jr. and Ricky Baker put on a spirited battle for fourth in the later stages of the race, giving the fans some excitement around “Wisconsin’s Action Track.” At the checkered flag, it was Shafer finishing fourth with Baker in fifth.
The fans would enjoy the Midwest Compact Series feature and fireworks after the main event. As far as the rain, as it inched closer to the Speedway, the rain cell broke up and disappeared.
The ARCA Midwest Tour presented by SCAG Power Equipment will get a little break before their next event on Saturday, June 10th with the Bev Aschenbrenner Memorial at Marshfield Motor Speedway in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
Visit midwesttour.racing for the full schedule and be sure to follow the ARCA Midwest Tour presented by SCAG Power Equipment on Facebook (/midwesttour) and Twitter (@midwesttour).
