Ty Majeski Denied of Snowball Derby Win by Controversial Call

Another year, another Snowball Derby ending in absolute chaos. It seems like you can’t have the biggest race in pavement short track racing without a healthy dose of controversy, and 2025 was no exception.

This time, NASCAR Truck Series star Ty Majeski was at the center of a storm that saw his dominant performance and a potential third Derby win evaporate thanks to a black flag on a late-race restart.

Let’s be real, if you had to bet your last dollar on who had the car to beat, it was Majeski. He was the class of the field, leading the pack and looking untouchable. But with just 12 laps to go, everything went sideways. Race control flagged him for jumping a restart, handing him a warning. On the very next attempt, they hit him again. This time, it was a black flag, the kind of call that makes a driver’s stomach drop.

Majeski, in a move that screamed “you’ve got to be kidding me,” refused to pull off the track. He crossed the finish line first, but as far as the official score sheet was concerned, he might as well have been parked in the infield. The win was handed to Stephen Nasse, who inherited the lead after the penalty. Talk about an unsatisfying victory.

1. Majeski vs. Race Control: The Aftermath

After the race, a visibly frustrated Ty Majeski didn’t hold back. You could feel the sting of what he felt was a stolen victory. “The rule states that you can increase your speed to the line,” Majeski argued, clearly exasperated. “Felt like I did that… there’s a little bit more of a gray area with the way the rule’s written. And, yeah, they made a… I’m judging the call in the biggest race of the year and probably took away the win from us.” It’s the kind of vague rule that drives drivers and fans insane. It’s a “ball and strike call,” as Majeski put it, and in a race with $50,000 on the line, that’s a tough pill to swallow. He made it clear he wanted a word with whoever was in race control. You can’t blame him. After dominating 300 laps, having the race decided by a subjective call in the final moments is a gut punch.

2. Was Majeski Right in his Argument?

“I felt like I had a really good argument, especially looking at the replay and looking at some of my previous restarts from earlier in the race were exactly the same, and they never called it,” he continued. “So, that’s why it bothers me quite a bit…why is the last restart of the race any different from the restart on lap 217 if the rule is the rule?” That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? The inconsistency is what truly grinds the gears. If it wasn’t a penalty on lap 217, why was it a race-deciding penalty on lap 288? It leaves a “black cloud over the race,” as Majeski said, and unfortunately, it’s not the first time he’s left the Derby feeling wronged by officials.

3. Poetic Justice for Nasse?

Ironically, the man who benefited, Stephen Nasse, knows exactly what it’s like to have a Snowball Derby win stripped away. Back in 2019, he celebrated in victory lane only to be disqualified in post-race tech inspection. This time, the racing gods (or at least, the race officials) smiled on him. “I really do hate it for Ty,” Nasse said, trying to sound gracious while probably fighting back a grin. “He was really stout. I don’t know that we would have been able to pass him otherwise, but I’ll take this. I gave him one before and he gave me one now.” It’s a classic case of “what goes around, comes around” in the cutthroat world of short track racing. While Nasse celebrated his redemption, Majeski and his team were left to protest the call, re-watching the replay on a phone in the tech shed, trying to make sense of the decision. But race director Nicholas Rogers stood firm, stating that there was no “protest” mechanism for this kind of call and that he had to stand by his officials. The whole ordeal underscores a recurring problem in racing: rules that are open to interpretation. When the stakes are this high, a “ball and strike call” just doesn’t cut it. For now, the record books will show Stephen Nasse as the winner, but for everyone who watched, the 58th Snowball Derby will be remembered as the race Ty Majeski won, and then lost in the blink of a black flag.

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