Matt Crafton raced to an 11th place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series San Bernardino County 200 at California Motor Speedway on Friday, a bittersweet ending to his Golden State homecoming.

Crafton qualified 20th for the race, but the Tulare native quickly rocketed into the top-10 in the No. 88 Menards/Quaker State Chevrolet Silverado. Crafton spent the majority of the evening challenging for the lead and appeared poised for a possible top-5 finish, but his truck scuffed the wall and he yielded some spots during a late-race restart en route to the finish.

"We made contact with the wall with about 11 laps to go, and we kinda had to hang on from there," Crafton said. "Our guys did a great job in the pits tonight. We just adjusted a bit too much on our last stop, and got a little loose. But it still feels good to follow up our first top-10 finish at Daytona last week with another solid performance tonight."

Crafton is in 9th place in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series standings. Unlike last season, when he got out of the gate slowly with subpar finishes at Daytona and California and spent the rest of the season playing catch up, Crafton and the No. 88 crew are brimming with confidence. "The work our guys have done in the pits has allowed us to pick up valuable spots during the first couple of races," Crafton said. "They've done an outstanding job. Our trucks have been awesome. Everybody has had another year to get comfortable with each other, and we believe in each other and feel like we're capable of some really special things. The team continues to jell, and that breeds confidence."

Crafton can't wait for the American Commercial Lines 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on March 16. "I love racing at Atlanta," he said. "It's one of my favorite tracks, because we can run two or three-wide. There's no 'follow the leader' racing there."