Matt Crafton Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LOUDON, N. H. – William Byron stole a page from his mentor and team owner, Kyle Busch. Leading 161 of 175 laps in Saturday’s UNOH 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway – the first race in the inaugural NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase – Byron cruised to victory, the way Busch has done so many times before, and punched his ticket into the Chase’s Round of 6. Not that runner-up Christopher Bell, Byron’s stablemate at Kyle Busch Motorsports, didn’t make it interesting inRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Heading into Wednesday night’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, just five drivers were locked into the Truck Series Chase with a dead heat for the final transfer spot, but after 200 laps around the half-mile bullring, the Chase picture has come into focus a bit more with three races remaining in the regular season. Prior to the UNOH 200, Ben Kennedy and Cameron Hayley were in a tie for the eighth and final transfer spot as the two drivers bothRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LONG POND, Pa. – Saturday’s Pocono Mountains 150 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Pocono Raceway featured no Sprint Cup drivers in the field. Then again, the race didn’t need any representation from NASCAR’s top division, as dominant as William Byron was. The 18-year-old from Charlotte, N.C., led 44 of 60 laps in the No. 9 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota in a caution-filled event and pulled away to beat runner-up Cameron Haley to the finish line by a comfortable 1.407 seconds. The victoryRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Last Monday, things looked bleak for ThorSport Racing and their four truck operation after a major fire broke out in their race shop and caused major damage to the building, but on Saturday night at Iowa Speedway, things began to look up for the team. Though the team had to deal with the fire, they were determined not to let it hold them back when they rolled into Iowa for Saturday night’s Speediatrics 200. Three of the four team trucks were able to qualify insideRead More

By John Sturbin, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Texas – Teenager William Byron overhauled Matt Crafton with five laps remaining and drove to victory in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Rattlesnake 400 Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Byron, of Kyle Busch Motorsports, posted his second series victory at the expense of Crafton, who dominated the 167-lapper after brushing the Turn 3 wall 11 laps into the night. Byron earned his breakthrough series victory earlier this season at Kansas Speedway, a 1.5-mile quad-oval similar to TMS. Byron, 18, isRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – Matt Crafton had a lot to overcome on Saturday—a 17th-place starting position and a difficult pit stall that cost him dearly in the early stages of Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But after 134 laps, Crafton was 5.748 seconds ahead of second-place Kyle Busch, winning the race and extending his series lead to 12 points over seventh-place finisher Timothy Peters. In fact, the two-time champion won consecutive races for the first time in his NASCAR CampingRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DOVER, Del. – It took 16 tries, but Matt Crafton finally got his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory at Dover International Speedway. Holding off hard-charging Daniel Suárez throughout a 27-lap green-flag run to the finish of Friday’s Dover 200 at the Monster Mile, the two-time series champion picked up his first win of the season and the 12th of his career, all but assuring himself a berth in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chase. “We’ve gotten close and we’ve had veryRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – William Byron remembers watching NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races when he was six years old. Now 18, Byron has a win in the series he watched as a child. But it took a strong truck and a stroke of good luck for Byron to win Friday night’s Toyota Tundra 250 and reach Victory Lane at Kansas Speedway for the first time in five series starts. Driving the No. 9 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports, Byron was third when frontrunnerRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service HAMPTON, Ga. – In a wild race that saw some of the best trucks in the field destroyed before the finish, John Hunter Nemechek held off Cameron Hayley in a two-lap dash to the checkers to win Saturday’s Great Clips 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway. But it was a skull session with 2014 Sprint Cup champion Kevin Harvick the night before that was instrumental in guiding Nemechek to victory in his unsponsored No. 8 Chevrolet. “I’ve got toRead More

By Seth Livingstone, NASCAR Wire Service HOMESTEAD, Fla.—As strong as he was in winning Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200, Matt Crafton was already looking ahead to 2016. Crafton, whose hopes for a third consecutive NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship were dashed by a crash at Phoenix last week, won his sixth race of the season, holding off John Hunter Nemechek and Tyler Reddick in the season finale. Although Crafton’s No. 88 Toyota Tundra finished 2.9 seconds ahead of Nemechek and more than six seconds ahead of Reddick, the 39-year-oldRead More