{"id":28713,"date":"2019-11-16T00:10:01","date_gmt":"2019-11-16T06:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=28713"},"modified":"2019-11-16T16:09:17","modified_gmt":"2019-11-16T22:09:17","slug":"matt-crafton-strikes-a-blow-for-veteran-drivers-with-gander-trucks-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/11\/16\/matt-crafton-strikes-a-blow-for-veteran-drivers-with-gander-trucks-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Crafton strikes a blow for veteran drivers with Gander Trucks title"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Matt Crafton, driver of the #88 Jack Links\/Menards Ford, celebrates with his team the after winning the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 15, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

HOMESTEAD, Fla. \u2013 The young guns will have to wait.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matt Crafton, driver of the #88 Jack Links\/Menards Ford, celebrates after winning the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 15, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Matt Crafton, a 43-year-old veteran of 19 full seasons in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series, took home his third championship with a second-place finish in Friday night\u2019s Ford EcoBoost 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.<\/p>\n

Crafton claimed the title without winning a race this season, but that was all but irrelevant as Crafton moved within one championship of series leader and NASCAR Hall of Fame Ron Hornaday Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess I finally got out of the wheelchair and got up one the wheel and got it done,\u201d said Crafton, who crossed the finish line 1.569 seconds behind race winner Austin Hill but a comfortable 9.201 seconds ahead of Ross Chastain, who finished fourth in the race and second among the Championship 4 drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne step closer to what Hornaday\u2019s done, and they called us the underdog.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crafton exhibited a mixture of elation and defiance as he celebrated in Victory Lane. Almost an afterthought among pundits entering the race, Crafton schooled his younger Championship 4 competitors with a No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford that improved throughout the race.<\/p>\n

That others discounted his chances clearly was a motivating factor for Crafton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing sweeter, to be honest,\u201d Crafton said. \u201cIt was that little jab in the side\u2014and I don\u2019t know if I needed that, but it just ticked me off. And I just said, \u2018I\u2019m going to prove you really, really wrong tonight.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matt Crafton, driver of the #88 Jack Links\/Menards Ford, celebrates with a burnout after winning the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 15, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI knew I was going to do whatever I had to do for every one of these guys, for (team owners) Duke and Rhonda (Thorson) and everyone who worked hard, but I said it was that little bit extra poke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though fired up by the slight, Crafton had to exercise the patience of a veteran when Hill passed him for the lead on Lap 112 of 134.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they told me the 24 (championship contender Brett Moffitt) was nine seconds back, and we were gapping him by three-tenths (of a second) a lap, I was like, \u2018I need to look at the big picture here and not take a chance of losing this championship. Let\u2019s just ride right here\u2014race as hard as I could without doing anything dumb to put the thing in the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winning the title without winning a race didn\u2019t bother Crafton in the least.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ll sleep very, very well all winter\u2014with the trophy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matt Crafton, driver of the #88 Jack Links\/Menards Ford, and crew celebrate after winning the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 15, 2019 in Homestead, Florida. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Crew chief Junior Joiner, who has been with Crafton for all three of his championships\u2014the first two coming back-to-back in 2013 and 2014\u2014echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t win the race, but gosh, darn it, we won the war,\u201d Joiner said.<\/p>\n

The youth movement did have its moments on Friday night. In his eighth Truck Series start of the season, 19-year-old ARCA champion Christian Eckes secured the seventh owner\u2019s championship for Kyle Busch Motorsports with a third-place finish, a day after Eckes was announced as one of KBM\u2019s full-time drivers for next year.<\/p>\n

Eckes couldn\u2019t have claimed the owner\u2019s title, however, if it weren\u2019t for the efforts of a veteran driver.<\/p>\n

Crafton made his first start in the Truck Series in 2000, running only his debut race at Auto Club Speedway that year. Greg Biffle won the Truck Series title that season, and it was Biffle whom KBM team owner Kyle Busch coaxed out of retirement to run one race in the No. 51 Toyota at Texas.<\/p>\n

Biffle won in his only start, and it was that victory that qualified the No. 51 for the owner Playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought an old retired guy might be able to get it done\u2014and he did,\u201d Busch said after Friday night\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Crafton is the first Ford driver since Biffle in 2000 to win a Truck Series championship.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/HMS_NGOTS_MCrafton_JJoyner_DPepper_111619.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla. \u2013 The young guns will have to wait. Matt Crafton, a 43-year-old veteran of 19 full seasons in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series, took home his third championship with a second-place finish in Friday night\u2019s Ford EcoBoost 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Crafton claimed the title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":28699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[527,60,16,663],"class_list":["post-28713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-homestead-miami-speedway","tag-matt-crafton","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-gander-outdoors-truck-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/HMS_NGOTS_ChampFlag_111519.jpg?fit=2448%2C1704&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7t7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28714,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28713\/revisions\/28714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}