Matt Crafton has won three championships with ThorSport Racing. Ben Rhodes has won two. Is it finally Ty Majeski’s turn to claim his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title with the organization based in Sandusky, Ohio? Walking into Phoenix as one of the final four drivers, the 30-year-old has put himself in the best spot to make that happen.

Majeski battles fellow contenders Grant Enfinger, Corey Heim, and Christian Eckes for the ultimate prize. All his rivals stand to win their first NASCAR National Series championship on Friday. That only means one of those three drivers must be hungrier than the others to ensure a career-defining moment. Hopefully, their Arizona advances do not mimic the carnage we saw in last year’s grand finale. And with a veteran like Ty Majeski bullish about getting it done with honor and ethics, the Truck Series title decider looks set to be a race for the ages.

ThorSport Racing’s hopes for title #6 rest with Ty Majeski

Ty Majeski is not your ordinary NASCAR driver. A proud Wisconsin by heart, he moved to Charlotte, NC, in 2017 to work as an engineer for Roush Racing. Around this time, Majeski also became the number-one ranked oval player on iRacing, and he held onto that record for about 5 years. But little did he know, the future would eventually replicate his gaming success on an actual racetrack soon. Majeski scrambled around Roush’s Xfinity program until it got shut down permanently after 2018. For Majeski, things looked bleak for a while, but he fought hard until he found a place to call home in ThorSport Racing before the 2021 season. Four years later, ThorSport’s sixth title depends on how well Ty Majeski performs this Friday. That speaks volumes about his incredible growth as a driver.

The next year, Majeski moved to the #98 team at ThorSport and didn’t have the strongest of years but made it as far as the Round of 8, all while being 75 championship points short, thanks to a penalty for an illegal wheel at Milwaukee. As Majeski reminisced to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, “There’s a driver code, right? And everybody’s code is a little bit different. And you know, there are situations, that have kind of, gone on, in NASCAR in the course of last couple of seasons, that I personally would not be able to do and sleep well at night.”

“So, obviously, I’m going to be aggressive… If there is something I can do to win the championship, I’m going to do it,” he opined realistically. And what he said next can only make Ty Majeski more likable. “But I’m going to do it in such a way where I’m gonna be proud of the way I got it. And again, you know, maybe not everybody’s like that. But I rather just be able to do things the right way, and win the right way.”—Majeski summed up his honor in 5 simple words, and did not wish to repeat this year’s Trucks finale with any controversy like the yesteryears.

“So… I’m excited to have the opportunity to go there. I think it’s a great track for [crew chief, Joe Shear Jr.] and I. Anytime we go to a short track, I feel like we’re a threat to win. And I feel like we can be considered the favorite going into Friday,” the first-time championship hopeful in him declared. Majeski has made three Truck Series starts at Phoenix. He has never finished better than 11th in either of those outings. Should he finish higher than all three title rivals this year, he could become the third consecutive Ford Performance champion in the Truck Series, after Zane Smith (2022), and Ben Rhodes (2023).

With the championship on the line, tempers flare way too often at Phoenix. And 2023 was the best example of that notion.

Ford’s lone ranger eyes the unattained glory with honor

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Last year, the final 4 included eventual winner Ben Rhodes, veteran Grant Enfinger, and young guns, Carson Hocevar and Corey Heim. The #98 ThorSport Racing team started on the front row and led the most laps in that race. Majeski even won Stage 1, but one of those four restart attempts ruined his top-5 finish in overtime. Jesse Love got into rear-ended Majeski and spun him out, which handed the latter a P20 finish. Controversy emerged throughout that race. First, the younger championship contenders, Heim, and Hocevar, got into each other. Then there were 12 cautions called for a combined 64 laps. And let’s not even talk about the restart zone that was painted 50 feet ahead of where it was supposed to be for the Truck Series championship race.

From Martin Truex Jr to Denny Hamlin to Kyle Busch, the controversial race found its critics moments after its conclusion. Truex called it “a joke,” and declared ‘[NASCAR] needed to fix it’. The Rowdy One put out quite a disheartening image when he concurred, “I mean, there’s no respect whatsoever.” Regardless, when the dust settled, a non-final 4 driver, Christian Eckes, won the race, while Ben Rhodes won the championship by one point over Grant Enfinger.

However, ironically, Eckes, the winner of that race, is in the Championship 4 this year. But he might have set up his Phoenix weekend for failure, considering even Ben Rhodes believes Eckes is at “Taylor Gray’s mercy”. Those two tangled in the closing laps of the Martinsville cutoff race, and as Eckes sealed in a shot at the championship, Gray fell short, largely because of Majeski’s aggressive driving in the closing stretch. Taylor Gray confronted Eckes in Victory Lane, and after a few words exchanged, the next part of their feud looked destined to play out on Friday. But in NASCAR, hot heads cool down faster than a pair of slicks that just did 100 laps on a scorching Talladega afternoon, so who knows what will happen?