Crafton celebrates first career Craftsman Truck Series win
By Jared Turner – SceneDaily Staff Writer
Saturday, May 17, 2008
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David Griffin / NASCAR Scene
Matt Crafton captured his first Craftsman Truck Series victory in 178 starts Friday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
CONCORD, N.C. – It took Matt Crafton 178 starts to snare his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory. It took only about 35 crash-filled laps at Lowe’s Motor Speedway to set the unlikely win in motion Friday night.
A witness of a chaotic turn of events that took frontrunner after frontrunner out of contention in the late stages of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, ThorSport Racing’s Crafton hung on and survived for an unlikely triumph in a race that might well be remembered more for who didn’t win than who did.
“Finally we can shut them up,” a jubilant Crafton said in victory lane as he celebrated his long-awaited triumph. “Now they can say, ‘When’s the second one coming?’ ”
The victory marked only the second for ThorSport Racing and its first since 1998.
MRD Motorsports’ Chad McCumbee placed second followed by Circle Bar Racing’s Brendan Gaughan, Roush Fenway Racing’s Erik Darnell and Circle Bar’s Rick Crawford.
Billy Ballew Motorsports’ Kyle Busch came home eighth but appeared headed for an easy victory when a collision with Kevin Harvick Inc.’s Ron Hornaday Jr. on lap 104 sent Hornaday spinning and Busch into the Turn 3 wall.
Busch, who led 86 laps after starting from the pole, sustained significant right-side damage to his Toyota and never recovered.
“My truck was glued to [the] race track I guess way better than his,” Busch said in reference to Hornaday. “Just unfortunate, man.”
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Unfortunate would be an accurate description of the circumstances that derailed many of those who appeared most ready to capitalize on Busch’s trouble.
First, new-leader Darnell spun his tires on a restart with seven laps to go and lost several positions. Johnny Benson, who moved by Darnell on the outside at the start-finish line to take the lead, was ordered by NASCAR to pit road for jumping the start.
The exchange gave Crafton the lead with just three laps of the regularly scheduled distance left and set up a fierce battle for second that ended with Germain Racing’s Todd Bodine spinning Hornaday just past the start-finish line at the entrance to Turn 1.
An angry Hornaday limped home 23rd and took umbrage with Bodine, who finished 12th after being penalized for rough driving.
“He just flat tried to kill me,” said Hornaday, who leads the point standings by five over Crawford and 38 over Bodine. “You don’t spin somebody out on the straightaway. Life is too short to have an idiot like that.”
Bodine said he didn’t mean to cause Hornaday to wreck.
“I was just trying to help him,” Bodine said. “And now I look like a goat.”
Once the dust settled, all Crafton had left to do was hold off a charging McCumbee on a green-white-checkered restart. And he did, despite McCumbee's attempts to make a run down the backstretch on the final lap.
“That was a hard fought second place – I can tell you that much,” McCumbee said.
And a hard night for a host of contenders.
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Brendan Gaughan
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