George Gorham Jr. just reminded everyone what real short-track racing looks like. At the 2025 Bigley Memorial 128, he started 12th, sliced to the front by lap 67, and checked out, winning by more than eight seconds in a race that went 126 laps straight green after one early yellow. No stage breaks, no overtime, no forced restarts. Just pure speed. Ty Majeski, who finished second, left the Freedom Factory grinning about how rare, and how good, that actually felt.

Majeski calls the Bigley Memorial “old school” racing

After the checkered flag, Ty Majeski didn’t hide how refreshing the whole night felt.

“It’s great,” he said. “Just to have these races play out authentically, I think, is a good thing. Sometimes the cautions can breed cautions, and at this level, none of us can afford to tear up race cars with stages and stuff like that.”

He wasn’t wrong. The Bigley ran clean from lap three to the end. 126 green laps on a place that’s basically a third-mile on the apron and almost a half-mile up high. Gorham’s No. 10 was untouchable, Majeski’s backup car was strong but never close enough, and only three cars finished on the lead lap. Everybody else got lapped the honest way, by being slower, not by getting caught in someone else’s mess.

Majeski loved it. “I thought it was very refreshing to see a race go 126 laps green. You rarely see that in today’s day and age. So to me, that’s old school. I thought it was a great race tonight, and mostly everybody gave plenty of room out there and was very respectful.”

That’s the keyword: ‘respectful’. Fifty of the best Super Late Model drivers in the country showed up  — Cup guys, Truck guys, weekend warriors, all on the same track with big money and pride on the line. They raced hard without turning it into a demolition derby.

George Gorham passed cars clean, Majeski followed the same line, and nobody felt the need to punt someone for position because the race was long enough for real speed to win. Even in a backup car after an oil-pump belt let go on his primary, Majeski knew the deal.

“I don’t know that there was really anything we could do to match what the 10 car had tonight.”

No excuses, no whining about cautions or restarts that never came. Just a nod to the guy who brought the fastest car and drove it perfectly. Majeski saved his sharpest take for the contrast with the big-league stuff.

He called the constant-crash, stage-break, overtime-heavy races “derbies” and “weak.” At short tracks, teams can’t just grab another truck off the shelf. One wreck can end your whole season. So when a big race like the Bigley runs clean and green for basically the entire distance, it feels honest. It feels like racing instead of reality TV.

That same weekend vibe couldn’t be more different from what Majeski just lived through in the NASCAR Truck Series.

How was Majeski’s NASCAR season?

The 2025 season ended with him second in points again, 10 top-fives, 18 top-tens, a 9.8 average finish, and not a single win. He took the No. 98 to Phoenix with a real shot at the championship, only to watch Corey Heim drive away with the trophy.

It was consistent, sometimes brilliant, but never quite enough under a format that loves chaos and late restarts more than season-long excellence. Next year, Majeski slides over to the No. 88 full-time, taking Matt Crafton’s seat when Crafton steps away.

With Heim moving up and the field wide open, a lot of people already have Majeski penciled in as the favorite, no matter how many stages or playoffs they throw at him.

One weekend, he’s moving on from a championship that slipped away because someone got a lucky caution or a perfect restart. Next, he’s celebrating a 126-lap green-flag clinic that rewards pure speed and respect.

Same driver, two different worlds. And if you ask Ty Majeski which one feels more like real racing, he just showed you his answer under the Florida lights.