Ty Majeski talks about second place in the Milwaukee Mile NASCAR Truck Series
Although it wasn’t quite enough for him that day, the Seymour-based racer had reason to be optimistic about a championship run.
WEST ALLIS – Layne Riggs earned his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory Sunday, taking the checkered flag ahead of state favorite Ty Majeski in the LiUNA! 175 at the Milwaukee Mile.
Riggs led the final 53 laps.
“When I joined at the beginning of the season, I knew it was a great team and the guns were firing on all cylinders. We’re going to win our first race. We’re going to win them all,” Riggs said.
“But you always get kind of humbled at the beginning of the year, and I expected that. But I got really humbled and really humbled and really humbled, and it just kept dragging me down, down.
“And I’m so glad that (Front Row Motorsports) had the confidence in me to continue to give me good trucks, and I’m just so glad we got it done so quickly. I just thought, my rookie season, we’re going to come in and do our best. Hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and win. … But just to come out here and just pass them and pass them and take the lead like that and dominate, it feels so much better.”
Who is Milwaukee Mile winner Layne Riggs?
The 22-year-old Riggs, the son of former NASCAR driver Scott Riggs, is racing his first full season in the Craftsman Truck Series after making three starts in each of the previous two seasons.
In the 22 races prior to Milwaukee, Riggs has finished in the top five five times, with his best finish being third last season at Indianapolis Raceway Park with Spire Motorsports and this year at North Wilkesboro Speedway with Front Row Motorsports.
Riggs did not qualify for the ten-driver, seven-race playoffs.
Scott Riggs competed in the Truck Series in Milwaukee in 2000 and 2001, achieving his best result of ninth place in 2000.
How did Layne Riggs win?
Riggs lined up second on the restart to begin the final stage. Majeski took the lead from third and held it for two laps before Riggs got under it.
“The last restart was a really tough battle,” Riggs said. “And everyone says, ‘What was going through your mind on the last restart?’ Nothing. I just went out and just sank it in the corner. I turned the wheel before they hit the gas and it stuck.”
Riggs didn’t remember all the details, but he remembered the main point. He made the attack when he could, then defended when Majeski fought back.
“You wanted to be out there and I was working higher than him, higher than him,” Majeski said. “He saw that and went up. I tried to get lower, but I just had less grip down there.”
“Who would have thought we’d be tearing down the fence on a flat, one-mile race track? Crazy, but it makes for great racing.”
What happened to Ty Majeski in LiUNA! 175?
Majeski, a Seymour native, took pole and led for 44 laps twice, but the ThorSport team had narrowly missed the set-up of his Ford, and he finished 1.516 seconds down after closing to within 0.8 seconds with 10 laps to go.
Majeski had won the two previous races before the playoffs at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Richmond Raceway.
“If I wanted one of those three, it would obviously be the Milwaukee Mile,” Majeski said.
He led the first 42 laps before being overtaken in traffic by Christian Eckes just before the first yellow flag of the race. Eckes led twice and drove for 71 laps, the highest number of laps of the race.
“As bad as it seems to me that we missed it today, we were also very close, which means our trucks are good,” said Majeski. “They have a lot of grip, even if we lacked balance. I’m pretty proud of that.”
“We have put a lot of work into improving our trucks in the last few weeks during the Olympic break and before this race and it has shown.”
Since Riggs is not participating in the playoffs, Majeski is the leader ahead of Eckes.
Nick Sanchez finished fourth and Taylor Gray completed the top five.
Is NASCAR returning to the Milwaukee Mile?
State Fair Park board chairman John Yingling said before the race started that the mile will not be on the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series schedule.
IndyCar, which has a doubleheader race on Labor Day weekend, will be moved up a week and take over the date.
The Craftsman Truck Series ran for 15 years from its inception in 1995 to 2009, before financial problems caused NASCAR to stay away. Track Enterprises, which had hosted stock car racing at the track since 2019, brought the trucks back last season.
William Sawalich repeats in ARCA
Seventeen-year-old double rider William Sawalich dominated, repeating his victory in the Sprecher 150 held earlier in the day.
He led 148 laps and finished the race 4.675 seconds ahead of Connor Zilisch, who led the other two after the mid-race break.
The win was Sawalich’s seventh of the season and his fourth in a row, as well as the fourth in a row for Joe Gibbs Racing at the Mile since ARCA returned in 2021.
Although Sawalich spent more time driving and on the open track than racing, the time on the track was still valuable for his development, said Sawalich, who finished 14th in Truck mode.
“I just learned a lot about the track and its characteristics, and also the black down there, the new surface, how smooth it is, that’s honestly not the plan to use all that in the truck race,” Sawalich said. “So I know that now, and we just picked up a few things that I can use later.”
