TRUCKS: Ty Majeski Plans to Appeal Fine for Skipping Media Day to Vote
During Thursday's overall NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship 4 Media Day, Ty Majeski announced his intention to appeal the $12,500 fine dished out to him by NASCAR this week following Majeski failing to appear for a NASCAR Broadcast Partners Media Day in Charlotte, North Carolina on Tuesday, November 5.
With Tuesday serving as Election Day in the United States, Majeski wanted to perform his civic duty by voting in Wisconsin, where he hails from.
"I felt like I needed to do my duty as a [United States] citizen to vote," Majeski explained. "My team owners and I, Duke [Thorson], Rhonda [Thorson], Allison, we all made the decision to exercise that right."
Majeski says the Championship 4 Broadcast Media Day, which was new for this year, didn't catch him by surprise. He was aware of it, and says that his race team communicated with NASCAR for him in the lead up to him deciding to ultimately vote in Wisconsin rather than showing up for the Championship 4 Media Day.
"We certainly knew about it," Majeski said. "I didn't specifically have much communication with NASCAR prior. I let everybody internally at ThorSport handle those communications prio to not being there on Tuesday. So, yeah, I feel like they knew our position. Kind of unprecedented this has never happened before. Election Day, everyone knew it was Election Day for a long time."
To put in perspective how big the $12,500 fine is for a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver, Chandler Smith, a NASCAR Xfinity Series driver, was fined $10,000 after confronting Cole Custer post-race last weekend at Martinsville Speedway, the confrontation led to Smith slapping Custer.
A slap was worth $10,000, Majeski's decision to vote in Wisconsin on Tuesday was worth $12,000.
"Unfortunate circumstances for everybody. I don't think anybody wants to be put in that position," Majeski said. "But we have to have a country, and free country to be able to race in. That's just part of being a United States citizen, so I wanted to exercise that right."
While Majeski skipped the media obligation to vote, a representative from NASCAR confirmed to Racing America on SI that the driver and his team indicated to the santioning body that he would be absent from the media session, but did not disclose the reasoning.
The representative said had Majeski informed the sanctioning body that the reason was to vote, NASCAR would have shuffled the schedule around to accomodate Majeski so the driver could make it to Wisconsin in enough time to cast his vote in the election.
Majeski , 30, says he has always voted in person, and on Election Day. As he didn't know he would for sure be in the Championship 4 until the conclusion of last week's race at Martinsville Speedway, he didn't have much time to alert NASCAR, or devise a different plane to execute his vote in Wisconsin.
"Yeah, I didn't know I was going to be in the Championship 4 until a few days prior," Majeski noted. "I have always, in my whole life, always have been an election day vote guy. Never done an absentee ballot. Yeah, I wanted to make sure my vote was counted."
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.