Majeski and the No. 22 Chad Bryant Racing team earned his second win of the 2019 ARCA Menards Series after passing Riley Herbst with 14 to go, beating Herbst on the final round of pit stops.
“Ah man, this is a dream come true,” Majeski excitedly told Fox Sports 1 in his post-race interview. “Like I said last week, from losing my ride last year to Chad Bryant (Team Owner) taking a chance on me, man this is so special! Coming into the season, the goal was to win one race, one pole, but I’ll take wins any day over a pole. So this is really cool. Huge thank you to Crestliner for coming on board. That was so special. Paul Andrews (Crew Chief) made great calls all day long. Man, this Chad Bryant team works so hard, day in and day out. This Crestliner Ford was fast all day. It was just a matter of beating the 18 (Riley Herbst) off pit road in those green flag stops. I feel like whoever came out with track position was going to win the race.”
The #AnywhereIsPossible 200 green flag flew shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET and it looked like Herbst was going to completely dominate the whole race.
There were only a couple of incidents that did not bring out the caution. Pole sitter Harrison Burton had a right front tire go down while Steve Glasson had a flat left front tire go down one lap later.
On lap 29, the first and only caution came out for Bobby Gerhart who stalled in the tunnel turn but was able to refire his car after the caution flag flew. After the caution, nothing really changed, other than the fact that Burton was back up to fifth after having a flat tire a couple of laps earlier.
On lap 43, points leader, Michael Self had issues that began when he had a right rear tire go flat and eventually fuel pressure problems on Lap 76, which would eventually take him out of contention for the win. Flat tires continued to cause problems as Burton would suffer another one on Lap 50.
The final round of pit stops began with 20 to go and Hailie Deegan was the first to pit. Christian Eckes who was running third, came to pit but overshot his pit with 17 to go.
With 13 to go, eventual race winner, Majeski, would pit, taking only two right side tires. One lap later, race leader Riley Herbst made his final pit stop.
After making his pit stop, Majeski was already crossing the start/finish line while Herbst was entering Turns 1 and 2. There’s an ARCA rule where you have to stay below the yellow line after pitting. Herbst tried all he could to be the leader after pit stops, but Majeski went by him on the backstretch.
Herbst would need a caution in order to have another shot at Majeski but that would not happen as Majeski and the No. 22 Chad Bryant Racing team would go on to win their second straight race.
“The dirty air is real tough,” Majeski said in his post-race interview when describing catching Riley Herbst. “I could get within a couple of car lengths of him before I would just die. The inside is so preferred here. It’s tough to get clean air on the nose and get the front end to turn. I did all I could there. Fortunately, I made that pass on pit road and didn’t make it on the race track. I was thinking about my green flag pit stop and my marks, and it paid off.”
After leading 68 of the scheduled 80 laps, the No. 18 Monster Energy Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Riley Herbst would have to finish a disappointing second after being so dominant earlier on.
“I think right there at the end, we took two tires, just really tightened us up too much and couldn’t get back to the 22 (Ty Majeski),” Herbst said. “It just sucks. Man, when you have a dominating car like that to come home second, I just drove hard there and couldn’t do anything about it.”
It was Majeski’s second consecutive ARCA win in his first ARCA outing at Pocono. Majeski started fifth and took the lead with 13 laps to go from Herbst.
There would be just one caution and only four cars finished on the lead lap.
Final Results
1. Ty Majeski
2. Riley Herbst
3. Christian Eckes
4. Raphael Lessard
5. Bret Holmes, One Lap Down
6. Harrison Burton, Two Laps Down
7. Hailie Deegan, Two Laps Down
8. Joe Graf Jr., Two Laps Down
9. Cole Glasson, Three Laps Down
10. Travis Braden, Three Laps Down
11. Michael Self, Four Laps Down
12. Ed Pompa, Seven Laps Down
13. Scott Melton, Eight Laps Down
14. Tim Richmond, 12 laps down
15. Brad Smith, 33 laps down
16. Bobby Gerhart, 61 laps down
17. Tommy Vigh Jr, 71 laps down
18. Dick Doheny, 77 laps down
Up Next: The ARCA Menards Series continues their summer stretch to Michigan International Speedway on Friday, June 7, live on Fox Sports 1.
