Ty Majeski made a lot of people proud after the dust settled in Phoenix last Friday. Wisconsin’s fourth-ever Truck Series champion started on pole for the championship race, led the most laps, and then closed out his 2024 season with the grandest honor in his preferred tier of NASCAR competition.

Only three years ago, the gritty 30-year-old was a part-time engineer at the ThorSport Racing shop in Sandusky, Ohio. But with 2025 waiting around the corner, Majeski has steadily emerged as one of their most prized personnel. In more ways than one, Majeski built his own path to glory in the unforgiving circuits of NASCAR, overcoming plenty of setbacks along the way. And although he showed up when it mattered the most, his recent address to SiriusXM tells the story of a grind that finally turned fruitful after two long years in the making.

The champion who earned it brick-by-brick

Duke and Rhonda Thorson, alongside Mike Curb, won their third owner’s title at ThorSport Racing, all thanks to Ty Majeski. They are now tied with Hendrick Motorsports & Kevin Harvick Inc. in second place for Truck Series owner championships all-time. The doubters would’ve written off someone like Ty Majeski in favor of his more accomplished teammates, like Matt Crafton or Ben Rhodes early in February. But Majeski stood his ground and proved his worth until the very last moment.

Gone are those cursed days when he used to share the ‘unlucky’ #60 Roush Ford with Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe. These days, there is a different type of aura surrounding the #97 ThorSport Racing wheelman from Seymour. Majeski’s path to his debut championship trophy has been one of attrition and ultimate perseverance. And it showed in his passion once he finally claimed what was rightfully his, once the checkered flag finally dropped in Phoenix. His journey to the top was one that involved two-years of precise testing and hard work to reach the Truck Series summit.

From the sound of things, this was a moment Majeski had been preparing for quite some time. In a recent conversation with SiriusXM NASCAR, he said. “We all know, right, that the championship race is at Phoenix? So we put more emphasis on racetracks like Phoenix. Because at the end of the day, everybody knows, if you are going to win the championship, you have to run well at Phoenix… And we used the types of tracks that we know are like Phoenix to test that. We’ve tried a few different packages that some of the other racetracks that we felt correlate and we used that…” Majeski then emphasized that they, “built up that notebook over the course of, not only this season but the last two years to finally perfect a package there.”

Winning the championship at Phoenix also meant that Majeski scored his first NASCAR National Series victory on a 1-mile racetrack. But mind you, he is no stranger to the pressures of the Playoffs, or even the championship 4, for that matter. In 2022, he had the chance to end his season with a 1-2 finish for ThorSport Racing in the championship-deciding race with Ben Rhodes as half of the final four contestants. But a late spin with four laps to go would eventually hand Zane Smith the championship. It is safe to say Majeski learned his lessons well and saw his championship through until the very last moment this time around.

But in his own words, “It took a couple of swings at it, but I feel like we finally hit on it Friday night.” Now, he’s looking forward to doing it over again in 2025. “If you’re strong at Phoenix, you can rattle off some championship… We’ve seen that in the Cup Series with Penske,” concluded Majeski with the bigger picture in mind. Thanks to Team Penske’s championship triumph at the highest level, Ford Performance could take home two of three NASCAR National Series titles in 2025. But a lot of that credit must also go to the ‘winner-takes-all’ championship race, which awards the highest-finishing contender over the most consistent performer in the very last event of the season. 

That method of crowning the champion might raise some eyebrows, no doubt. Yet none of that can take away from Ty Majeski’s grueling journey to capturing his first-ever title in NASCAR’s high-stakes, high-pressure arena.

Ty Majeski’s ‘old-fashioned’ path to a championship

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Ty Majeski is not the flashiest of NASCAR drivers. Neither is he a sponsor sweetheart who can bring all the big bucks to the organization he drives for. For that fact, his rough-and-tumble rise to the top is best summed up by how he put it to Forbes just a few days ago. “I feel like I made it to this point the old-fashioned way,” remarked Majeski. “Got fired twice before from different opportunities. I came on originally as an engineer with only four races. I’m most proud of the way I’ve been able to make it there with little to no funding.”

And that is the sad truth of most grassroots racers who struggle with funding. They must make the most of each opportunity, just like Majeski did after his split from Roush Fenway Racing. He started out as a ground-level engineer working on ThorSport trucks. Hence, his emotions made all that more sense when he said, “The biggest thing for me is the way I made it there, and it makes the championship that much sweeter… My career has had a lot of ups and downs.”

Indeed, it has. But now, it appears he has finally found a permanent home at ThorSport Racing. “I don’t have any plans to do anything different. As long as Duke and Rhonda want to have me back, I would love to continue racing for them,” asserted the 2024 Truck Series champion. Based on his recent performances, it looks highly likely that the Ohio-based organization will keep hold of Majeski for at least a few years. After all, a story like his does not come around every other day at the billion-dollar roulette table of NASCAR.