Matt Crafton, despite not winning a race this year, claims third NASCAR Truck Series title
It took an extra hour and a half on Friday because of Mother Nature, but the first champion of NASCAR’s championship weekend has been crowned.
Your Gander Outdoors Truck Series winner: Matt Crafton.
A gamble of a pit stop with 37 laps to go paid off as Crafton finished second and blew past the rest of the championship contenders at the Ford EcoBoost 200 to claim the third truck series title of his career. Crafton also won the series title in 2013 and 2014. Austin Hill won the race.
“And they called us the underdogs,” Crafton said. “I heard everyone say I was the underdog and I didn’t have it, but we fought harder and I can guarantee you everyone in here worked harder.”
On paper, yes, Crafton was the underdog. He entered Friday with just six top-five wins and led all of 35 laps through 22 races.
But he maneuvered through the playoffs to put himself in position to contend for the title. And in the playoff format, that’s what it takes.
Crafton’s third title ties him with Jack Sprague (2001, 1999, 1997) for the second-most in truck series history. Ron Hornaday holds the record with four.
And Crafton won his third despite not winning a single race this year. He’s the first driver since Austin Dillon in 2013 — before the current elimination format was implemented — to win one of NASCAR’s three national series championships despite not winning a single race in the season.
Crafton’s last win came in the Eldora Dirt Derby on July 19, 2017.
Ross Chastain’s fourth-place finish in the race — more than nine seconds behind Crafton — put him as the runner-up for the series. Chastain led the first 28 laps of the race and 36 overall but fell behind midway through.
Brett Moffitt (fifth) and Stewart Friesen (11th) rounded out the Championship 4.
Heavy rain and lightning canceled the truck series’ qualifying round Friday afternoon and delayed the start of the race 90 minutes from its original 8 p.m. start.
The truck series’ starting lineup was determined by owner points and practice speeds, with Friesen earning the pole position, Chastain in Position 3, Moffitt in Position 4 and Crafton in Position 9 to begin the race.
Practices canceled
Practice rounds for both the Xfinity and NASCAR Cup series were also canceled Friday.
NASCAR Cup series racers will have a 50-minute practice session from 2:05 p.m.-2:55 p.m. Saturday in lieu of their qualifying round. The starting lineup for Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 will instead be determined by owner points.
As such, Denny Hamlin will start on the pole for the championship race with Kevin Harvick alongside him on the front row. After that, it’s Martin Truex Jr. starting at position 3 and Kyle Busch starting at position 4.
The Xfinity series still plans to have its qualifying round on Saturday at 12:35 p.m. ahead of the 3:30 p.m. Ford EcoBoost 300.
Breaking Richard Petty’s record
Joe Nemechek found his way into the NASCAR record books on Friday.
The Ford EcoBoost 200 was his 1,186th start in one of NASCAR’s three national series, breaking Richard Petty’s long-standing mark for most races by a NASCAR driver.
One caveat: Petty ran all of his races in NASCAR’s premier series, now known as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Nemecheck’s breakdown: 673 starts in the NASCAR Cup Series, 444 starts in the Xfinity series and 69 in the Truck Series (including Friday).
Nemechek’s son John Hunter, a driver in the Xfinity Series, gave his dad a special helmet with photos from throughout his racing career and many of the truck series drivers at Homestead had a decal commemorating Nemechek’s impending record.
“A lot of my buddies are on there,” Nemechek said. “... We’re family and family is what makes it so special.”
Harvick is the next closest active driver to the record with 1,150 starts heading into Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400.
Cup racing isn’t leaving Homestead
In case there was any doubt, NASCAR isn’t Homestead-Miami Speedway even as championship weekend leaves the racetrack after nearly two decades.
Al Garcia, the speedway’s president, confirmed the news at a press conference ahead of Friday’s Ford EcoBoost 200 that introduced the track’s new title sponsor, Dixie Vodka.
This weekend marks the 18th consecutive season that Homestead has hosted NASCAR’s final weekend. The sport’s schedule is shuffling around next year, with the championship being decided at Phoenix’s ISM Raceway. The location for championship weekend beyond 2020 has not yet been decided.
Homestead-Miami Speedway will host its races on March 20-22 next year, the first time since 2001 that they didn’t host the final race of the season.
“It is bittersweet. There’s no question about it,” Garcia said. “But every time something happens — when a door closes, another opens. I really am optimistic about the privilege of running a Monster Energy Cup Series race here during that spring break time. The competition and the sport is trending in the right direction. We’re very bullish on that. ... I do understand and I value the privilege of hosting the last race of the season and the championship. However, if you follow the circuit, there is some incredible competition and incredible events early in the season, in the middle of the season and in the playoffs.”
Helping others
As a part-time driver in the trucks series, Angela Ruch was never in contention to win a title this season.
But her impact in Friday’s race extended beyond the 134 laps around Homestead-Miami Speedway. Ruch used her No. 44 Chevrolet Silverado to pay tribute to 19-year-old Eric Erdman, who has been battling a rare form of brain cancer called Anaplastic Grade III Ependymoma for more than three years.
Erdman and his brother designed a wrap for Ruch’s truck that includes the name of his foundation, “Give a Child a Voice.” The foundation, according to its website, “works to educate children and adults about the importance of a child’s voice and encourages children to speak out when faced with difficult circumstances, through community-based programs” and began after he was contacted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation after he was diagnosed in 2016.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 11:15 PM.
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