Ty Majeski scored his first career Truck Series win on Thursday night and the victory at Bristol Motor Speedway locked Majeski into the championship finale.

Majeski, in his 40th career start in the trucks, became the first driver to earn a spot in the championship-deciding final four. He had a clean jump on Zane Smith on a restart to with 12 laps remaining to cruise to the victory in a Toyota for ThorSport Racing.

The 28-year-old from Wisconsin ran only four Truck Series races last season as he desperately tried to continue his NASCAR career. It led to a full season ride with ThorSport for this year and now a shot at the series championship.

Bristol marked the opening race of the round of eight in the Truck Series playoffs.

Smith finished second after starting at the back of the field.

Parker Kligerman finished third and was followed by Grant Enfinger, Matt Crafton and Derek Kraus.

The Truck Series races next on Oct. 1 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Bubba Wallace regained the lead with 43 laps to go and stayed out front the rest of the way, outrunning his car owner, Denny Hamlin, at Kansas as the Cup Series playoffs round of 16 concludes this weekend at Bristol Motorspeedway.

Wallace’s victory was the second of his career and the second in as many races won by a driver that didn’t qualify for the playoffs. Erik Jones won a week earlier at Darlington. 

Christopher Bell finished third and became the first driver to qualify for the next playoff round. He’s 10 points ahead of William Byron, 11 ahead of Hamlin and 18 ahead of Joey Logano. Kevin Harvick finished 36th and has failed to finish three straight races for the first time in a Cup career spanning 782 starts. 

This is the last race of round one of the playoffs; the playoff field will be trimmed to 12 following the race.

The 500 lap marathon is at 6:30 pm on Saturday evening.

Noah Gragson took the lead out of a restart on Lap 76 and maintained it until NASCAR shortened the race at Kansas because of rain after 94 laps to win his second race in a row and his fifth of the season with the XFinity Series heading to Bristol tonight.

Despite the victories, Gragson is just fourth in points. Allmendinger leads Ty Gibbs by 38, Justin Allgaier by 55 and Gragson by 72 as the series heads to the final race before the 12-driver field is set for the playoffs. Gragson and Ty Gibbs share the series lead for victories. Allmendinger has finished in the top 10 in 22 of 25 races; Gragson is next with 18 top-10 runs.

The 300 mile race is tonight at 6:30 pm.