Afterward, Majeski said he would’ve done the same thing to Kenseth if the roles were reversed. On the podium, the two had a pleasant exchange and shook hands.
“Obviously when he’s hogging my bumper, I’m going to do everything I can to keep him back,” Majeski said. “We just didn’t have that front turn.”
Moments after the race ended, Kenseth’s son, Ross, tweeted “Holy crap!!! What a move, dad still got it! #slingernationals.”
Majeski anticipated there was going to be some contact toward the end of the race from Kenseth.
“I knew if he was within a half-car length on the last lap, he was going to move me,” he said. “He got position a couple laps before; he finished me off. It’s exactly what I would’ve done. So congrats to him. We had a great race car tonight and we’ll try to do better next time.”
DeAngelis said his day was mixed before bringing his car to a third-place finish.
While contending with Prunty for the lead at lap 47, they made contact between turns one and two and Prunty spun in front of the field, causing a chain-reaction backup and ending the nights for Dennis Prunty and R.J. Braun, who crashed into the wall. DeAngelis fell back to 17th.
“We burned our stuff up in the first 100 laps just getting back up to the front,” he said. “Maybe five more laps in that first 100 we could’ve picked off two or three more cars.”
Before the halfway point, at lap 94, DeAngelis was sixth. He dropped a few places after the halfway point, as far back as eighth. From there, he began his ascension to the front. With 13 laps to go, on the last restart, he was fifth.
With 10 to go, he was fourth.
“At first, we were sitting fourth behind Apel and my spotter came over the radio and said, ‘Hey. They’re fighting pretty hard. We’ve got to get by (Apel) because anything can happen,’” DeAngelis said. “Sure enough, (Majeski) got way up. I think if we had another another lap we definitely would’ve finished second. We had a really good car.”
The limited late model feature also didn’t lack drama at the end of its respective 40-lap feature.
Tyler Schley and Jacob Nottestad were battling for the lead late. On the last lap, coming out of Turn 4, it appeared Schley nudged his car up the banking a bit to cut off Nottestad and win the feature.
Schley said his car got loose and just tried to hang on. Nottestad wasn’t buying it.
Before they reached the podium, Nottestad gave Schley a nudge on the cool down lap to show his disapproval for the move. When asked about it on the podium, he exercised restraint from what he admitted he wanted to say.
“I think we all know who the real winner is tonight,” Nottestad said.
As for what’s next for Kenseth, he said he hopes he can do a few more late model events. What is for certain is it is his granddaughter’s first birthday party Saturday.
Before that, Kenseth admitted he was driving home, which baffled him.
“I’m just getting ready to go home and go see the kids tomorrow and next couple days,” he said. “Then it’s my granddaughter’s first birthday party on Saturday so we’re flying down to see Ross and his family; looking forward to that. That’s what the rest of the week looks like.”
The finish:
Matt Kenseth, Ty Majeski, John DeAngelis, Steve Apel, Alex Prunty, Rich Bickle, Grant Griesbach, Luke Fenhaus, Daniel Hemric, Ryan DeStefano, J.J. Mueller, Chris Weinkauf, Derek Kraus, Nick Wagner, Michael Bilderback, Josh Brock, Austin Nason, Ryan Farrell, Gary LaMonte, Bubba Pollard, Dennis Prunty, R.J. Braun, Johnny Sauter, Stephen Nasse, Brad Keith, Chandler Smith.