Crafton Wins First Race In Wild Lowe’s Finish

Matt Crafton celebrates winning the North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. It was Crafton's first win in 178 career starts

Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

It took Matt Crafton 178 starts to snare his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory. It took about 35-crash filled laps at Lowe's Motor Speedway to set the unlikely win in motion.

A chaotic turn of events that took front-runner after front-runner out of contention in the late stages of the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, Crafton hung on and survived for an unlikely triumph in a race that may 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 victory. "Now they can say, 'When's the second one coming?'"

Chad McCumbee placed second followed by Brendan Gaughan, Erik Darnell and 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 4 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."

Unfortunate would be an accurate description of the circumstances that derailed many of those who appeared most ready to capitalize on Busch's trouble.

While leading the field to a restart with seven laps to go, Darnell spun his tires and lost several positions. Then, Johnny Benson, who moved by Darnell on the outside at the start-finish line to take the lead, was ordered to pit road by NASCAR 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.

Hornaday said, "You don't spin somebody out on the straightaway."

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.

Hornaday remained the points leader after six of 25 scheduled races. He heads Rick Crawford by just five with fewer than 70 points the difference between first and sixth places.

Results

* Rookie