High Sierra Photo

Matt Crafton rallied from a lap down late in the race to pick up his second consecutive top-10 with a ninth-place finish in his No. 88 Menards Chevrolet during the MBNA Race Points 200 NASCAR Truck Series race at the Dover International Speedway.  Crafton, running 14th at the time, received the free pass on a caution within 30 laps to go, and picked up five positions on the run to the finish.  With his third top-10 of the season, Crafton remains in seventh position in the NCTS championship standings.

"There was a lot of stuff going on out there today,' Crafton said.  "It sure seemed like most of it was right in front of me.  We were really lucky a couple of times.  The big crash on the start happened right in front of me.  It was just a huge cloud of smoke.   We got through that one, but it seemed like every time there was a wreck, we were having to dodge it."

Later in the race, Crafton had to make a save of his own when the truck jumped sideways on him through the center of turns three and four.

"Our truck was really loose on the first 10 or so laps after a restart,' Crafton said.  "It would just want to snap loose.  I went into three one time and it started to get away from me.  It was all I could do to hang on to it.  It must have been about 45 degree sideways.  That right there had to have been the save of the day!"

Once back on the lead lap, Crafton had to dodge three accidents directly in front of him involving some of the race leaders.

"I didn't see what happened to get Jack (Sprague) turned sideways, but there was a big cloud of smoke right on front of me and when I got through it his truck was right there and I barely missed him.  When (Dennis) Setzer and Brendan (Gaughan) got together, Setzer came back up the track and I had committed to go high to miss him.  We barely squeezed through.  Then I saw Todd Bodine and David (Starr) get together and I knew Todd had a left front going down.  It blew out and when he bounced off the wall we must have missed it by a foot."

Crafton's sits seventh in series points and is entering a stretch of races where he feels he and the ThorSport Racing No. 88 Menards team can threaten to move into the top-5.

"I learned a lot last year and we brought all those notes back here with us," he said.  "I think I'm a better driver than I was, I know these guys are giving me better trucks than I had last year and we're going to go to Texas looking for a top-5.  We have a lot of tracks coming up that have been really good for us in the past, so I am really excited."