The Camping World Truck Series began to field the Championship while the Xfinity Series reached the end of their regular season at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend, and there were plenty of fireworks.

Starting with the Thursday night Truck race, it was a special and big win for Wisconsin-native Ty Majeski of Thorsport Racing. Majeski held off Zane Smith, Parker Kligerman, Grant Enfinger, and Matt Crafton to score his first career truck series win, as well as punching a ticket to the Championship 4 in November at Phoenix. Majeski led 45 of 200 laps in the race, including leading the final 12 laps. 

“Man, this is unbelievable,” Majeski said post-race. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this, just so proud to be here. We came guns blazing for this race. We took our best truck- aggressive on pit strategy, got us out front, and were able to get it done. This is so cool. My career has been so up and down. There’s been a lot of people to help me get to this point. I know my late model guys are watching back at the shop. They’re a big reason why I’m here.”

“This is just damn cool…”

“Man, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”

Since beginning as a development driver for RFK Racing in 2017, Majeski has made 40 starts in the truck series and has been on three different teams and never finished higher than seventh while racing with RFK in the Xfinity Series, and never higher than eighth while racing with Neice Motorsports in 2019 and 2020. Majeski entered Bristol with eight top-five finishes and 15 top-ten finishes. 

Zane Smith, a championship favorite, finished second after having mechanical issues early in the race and also led for 39 laps. 

During the race, Josh Reaume, driving for his family team Reaume Bros, suffered a concussion after spinning in turn one and got hit hard on the driver’s side by Rajah Caruth. Reaume was able to climb out of his truck under his own power and in a statement made by the team, he was taken to a nearby hospital for precautionary CTI scans and has since been discharged.

The pole sitter Derek Kraus, Stewart Friesen, Christian Eckes, Chandler Smith, and Corey Heim rounded out the top 10. The truck series heads next to Talladega Superspeedway for the second race of the Round of 8 on October 1 at 12:30 pm EST. Tate Fogleman won the race a year ago.

Moving over to the Xfinity Series, Noah Gragson continued his hot streak by winning a third race in a row to finish out the regular season, while AJ Allmendinger clinched the regular season championship, giving himself 15 extra bonus points heading into the playoffs.

Gragson held off Brandon Jones, who will take over Gragson’s car next season, in the final 20 laps on 90-lap older tires. 

“That last caution came out, and I knew if I could ring the top, it was going to be hard for them to get there,” said Gragson, who will move to the Cup Series with Petty-GMS Racing next season. “I appreciate Brandon Jones racing us clean. He gave us the bumper with two (laps) to go, and I was hanging on, scrubbing the fence.

“We won here in Bristol in 2020 and there were no fans here (due to the pandemic)… What a great opportunity to race here in front of fans and have the opportunity to win the race. Our car was fast all day. We got to the top and we were rolling. I had a blast.”

Of the last two spots available in the Xfinity Series playoffs, defending Champion Daniel Hemric claimed the 11^th spot with a 20^th place finish and Ryan Sieg claimed the final spot after getting a top ten finish. 

Austin Hill finished third, Sam Mayer and Riley Herbst. Allmendinger, Josh Berry, Stefan Parsons, Allgaier, and Sieg completed the top 10 in the 300-lap race.

The Xfinity Series heads next to Texas Motor Speedway to begin the playoffs on Saturday, September 24 at 3:30 pm EST.