Dave Kallmann

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

They’re their own sort of odd couple.

Ty Majeski is a college student well on his way to an engineering degree. At 22, he is smooth and outgoing and growing more polished each day as he pursues his racing dreams.

Toby Nuttleman is an old-school mechanic, an honors graduate of the school of hard knocks who has raced with some of Wisconsin’s best stock-car drivers. He’s as passionate and focused as ever but at 58 has begun to realize there will be life outside racing.

Yet they clicked.

They consider each other among their best friends. They snowmobile together in the off-season.

And they win races together.

A lot of races.

“He knows his stuff up and down, and there couldn’t be a better guy for me to learn from than him,” said Majeski, a native of Seymour who has become part of the country’s short-track elite.

“The biggest thing is when we first started out is he had faith in me from the get-go.

“I was 16-17 years old when I started working with him, and he trusted me right off the bat. And that’s not easy to do.”

Motor sports glance

Oktoberfest this weekend at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway marks three years since Majeski raced a super-late model with Nuttleman as his crew chief.

In the time since, they’ve captured two ARCA Midwest Tour championships and are on the verge of a third, broken a handful of track records, contended in many of the country’s most prestigious short-track events and visited victory lane some 50 times.

In addition to his victories, Majeski also finished on top of the standings in the Kulwicki Driver Development Program last year — earning more than $50,000, plus mentoring — and recently was named part of the “NASCAR Next” class of up-and-coming drivers.

His NASCAR development deal with Roush Fenway was announced in May.

“Ty — I tell everybody this, I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of really good drivers, really talented drivers — if he don’t make it to NASCAR or wherever he wants to go, there’s a problem in racing,” Nuttleman said.

Nuttleman is the leader who guided Majeski’s climb so far.

He became involved in motor sports more than 35 years ago, first on snowmobiles, and he followed Steve Holzhausen off the snow and onto the asphalt.

“In 1984, I think we ran like 79 races in one summer, four nights a week, plus both of us had a 40-hour-a-week job,” Nuttleman said.

“Actually we won one track championship at Wausau. Never turned one lap of practice because we never got there in time. . . . We lost the other three by a combined total of, like, 30-some points.”

Nuttleman left his last regular job in the early 1990s, cashed in his 401k and turned to racing as his vocation.

“Wasn’t probably the brightest thing I’ve ever done,” admitted Nuttleman, who commutes from his home in Trempealeau 30 miles to a shop in West Salem, near the La Crosse track.

“I’ve not really looked at money much, but I’m getting old now and I have to. I’ve got a beautiful wife . . . and she’s very supportive but I can’t expect her to take care of all of the bills.”

Among the other notables with whom Nuttleman worked are Wisconsin legend Dick Trickle, NASCAR Midwest Series champion Steve Carlson, ASA champion Tony Raines and Scott Hansen.

One season he campaigned three cars at La Crosse, for his brother Kevin, Emily Sue Steck and Carlson.

Nuttleman also ran Charlie Menard’s program when Menard won 19 races in a season but later got fired.

“That was probably the hardest thing I had to deal with, just to leave everything,” Nuttleman said.

“Then when that whole deal fell apart . . . they had a fire sale and we actually went up and bought a whole bunch of stuff from them, really cheap (including) two cars.”

For Nuttleman, building winning race cars is a passion.

One car he bought in the Menard sale won another 21 races with Carlson. Majeski won a TUNDRA Super Late Models series race this season at Wisconsin International Raceway with Kaukauna with another car Nuttleman engineered and assembled at least a dozen years ago.

While Majeski’s career is on a rapid trajectory toward NASCAR, Nuttleman never really has pursued a career there. He isn’t sure he’d fit in a world where everyone is a specialist

“I don’t understand how this guy does this, and it gets passed on, and this guy does this, and it gets passed on,” Nuttleman said. “All it takes is one of the first guys to screw up and the car ain’t going to work.

“And they’re all at the shop. They have to do their job right, but they have no (particular connection to whether) the car runs good.

“This car is an extension of me, and if it doesn’t perform the way I think it should, well, then I didn’t do something right or there’s a problem and it needs to be addressed.”

That attitude — the attention Nuttleman pays — goes a long way toward explaining Majeski’s success, according to the driver.

The two are fortunate to think alike when considering adjustments that will improve the handling of Majeski’s car. At least as important is the fact Nuttleman is always thinking about improvements.

“You’ve almost got to back him off of some changes because he wants to try so much stuff,” Majeski said. “He’s always wanting to get better.

“He’s always been that way. And in this sport, when you think you’re the best, that’s exactly when you get beat.”

With Majeski driving and Nuttleman wrenching, that doesn’t happen often.

Sendemail to dkallmann@journalsentinel.com. Follow @davekallmann on Twitter.