The season finale for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series got underway at Phoenix Raceway on Friday with four drivers looking to claim the 2024 season title. Those four drivers included Ty Majeski, Corey Heim, Christian Eckes, and Grant Enfinger.
Majeski started the weekend off on a high note after scoring the pole earlier in the afternoon at the 1.0-mile oval. The Wisconsin native paced qualifying with a lap of 26.053s / 138.180 mph to earn his sixth pole of the year. Corey Heim, Stewart Friesen, Christian Eckes, and Grant Enfinger rounded out the top five starters.
Thirty-five engines fired up on pit road to begin the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship race just after 8:10 p.m. ET. The lone truck of Lawless Alan started at the rear after their crash in qualifying earlier in the day.
The field went green with Ty Majeski quickly clearing Corey Heim to lead the opening 38 circuits of the event. Heim, with 11 to go in the opening stage, started eating into Majeski’s lead with a gap of 0.963 seconds. Just before Frankie Muniz brought out the caution at lap 43, Heim took over the lead to win stage one under yellow.
Majeski, Christian Eckes, Nick Sanchez, and Grant Enfinger ended stage one as the top five.
Pit stops began with Majeski, Eckes, and Heim as the top three off pit road. Enfinger stayed out to lead a lap before coming down the pit lane. This gave Majeski the lead for the restart to begin stage two.
Majeski led through a caution and restart for the 91 of Jack Wood in turn two before Heim gave Majeski another run for the lead with 64 complete. Heim cleared the strong No. 98 truck to lead six circuits before Majeski re-took the spot with 21 to go in stage two.
Majeski won stage two with Heim, Layne Riggs, Sanchez, and Eckes in tow.
Majeski and the No. 98 crew quickly got on and off pit road to come out first – once again restarting as the leader to begin the final stage.
An incident involving nine trucks occurred following the restart on the backstretch. Unrelated to the incident, NASCAR considered Heim changed lanes too soon on the restart forcing a tail of the field penalty for the No. 11 team. The incident caused a six-minute and nine-second red flag period.
Majeski led the field to the green flag with 43 laps to go.
A pair of cautions later flew for Conner Jones and Layne Riggs with 112 and 119 complete. Majeski managed to hang onto the lead through the restarts.
Heim managed to work his way to second with under 25 to go. With 13 to go, Majeski held a 3.219-second gap ahead – hoping that the race would remain green to the end.
Majeski held the steady gap to win the season finale at Phoenix and the 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver title with playoff drivers Heim and Eckes finishing second and third.
“It’s been a long road here. There’s a lot of times in my career where this was like a far-fetched dream,” said Majeski after being presented with the championship trophy. “These people behind me really gave me another opportunity when my career looked like it could’ve ended.”
In 2021, ThorSport Racing signed Majeski on as an engineer while granting him four starts as a driver.
The opportunity turned into a championship run for the driver the following year in 2022 and remained with the team for the entirety of 2023.
“Any four that made it here it was gonna be hard,” continued Majeski on emerging as the champion out of the four drivers. “The 11 (Heim) and the 19 (Eckes), and the 9 (Enfinger) for that matter, have been so good this year. And we’ve been able to match them at certain times of the season and other times we were a step behind them. We never quit.”
Non-playoff driver Nick Sanchez finished fourth while playoff driver Grant Enfinger rounded out the top five.
“Really disappointed to come up short like that,” Heim told Todd Bodine after the race. “It’s hard to even be upset – I almost did everything right except for that restart violation. We were able to get our track position back pretty quick and make the most of it. I just had nothing for the 98 all day.”
Taylor Gray, Kaden Honeycutt, Connor Mosack, reigning champion Ben Rhodes, and Layne Riggs scored top-10 finishes.
The series heads into the offseason before returning at Daytona International Speedway in February 2025.
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