MARTINSVILLE, Va. – When it comes to experience and wisdom in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series garage, you don’t have to look far down the truck Chase standings to find Matt Crafton.
Crafton, driver of the No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra is seeking his third truck series championship for ThorSport Racing and first in the new Chase format entering Saturday afternoon’s race Martinsville Speedway.
Despite an engine failure last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway that left a 22nd place finish in the first-round eliminations, a top-five run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and an
eighth-place effort the following race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was good enough to keep Crafton around.
Heading into tomorrow’s race, the championship is on Crafton’s mind, but he doesn’t expect it to let him decide how he negotiates 200 laps around the Martinsville paperclip.
“I always look forward to coming to Martinsville, it’s definitely my favorite race track, said Crafton. “It’s where we all started at short tracks. We’ve won a couple times here and we’ve
always run well here in the past. We were off a little bit here in the spring and we feel we know why we were off a little bit here in the spring so hopefully we can carry the momentum we’ve had here in the past and have a good run here tomorrow.
“I don’t really pay a whole lot of attention to the Chase, I just go race your own race. Race each race as it’s the last race of the season. If you advance, you advance and if you don’t, you don’t. To be totally honest for 2017, that’s the way I feel. Hopefully, we can win, that would be great to be able to punch your ticket and go to Homestead and fight for a championship, but we have two more rounds after that I guess.”
And even though the Tulare, California native is focused on letting his championship opportunities fend for themselves, Crafton knows he doesn’t want to leave Saturday’s race without a top-10.
With Texas Motor Speedway and Phoenix International Raceway serving as the two remaining races in the Round of 6, the 40-year-old feels it would be difficult to recover from a bad run this late in the game.
“I don’t think you’re going to be able to have a mulligan this weekend and get onto the final round,” offered Crafton. “Without a doubt, you have to have a good run leaving this place – if it’s a top-10 worst case to go into the next two to go into the final four. I love coming here and if it’s meant to be, it will be. I say that each and every week and that’s what I live and die by.”
Those live and die by standards could be a secret weapon that Crafton keeps in his back pocket.
Knowing “a win and you’re in” leads to the Championship 4 at Homestead, should Crafton, the defending race champion see an opportunity to execute, he will.
Because that’s crafty Crafton at his finest.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
