Matt Crafton enters the Camping World RV Rental 200 at New Hampshire International Speedway on Saturday looking to recapture the momentum that propelled him to championship-contention in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Crafton, who won the Bud Pole Award at New Hampshire in '05, has finished outside the top ten in three consecutive races for the first time this season. That follows a run of 6 top-10 finishes in 7 races (including 4 top-fives). He says Loudon provides a welcome opportunity to take matters back into his own hands, in a sense.
"Loudon puts driver skill back into the equation…it puts the driver back in the game. We haven't had the results we would have liked the last few weeks, and hopefully we can turn it around here. This is a flat track, so it's important to have a truck that handles well. I've always enjoyed racing here. Hopefully, we can stay out of trouble and have strong pit stops, and come out with a top-5 finish. A strong finish here would give us a big lift toward getting back the momentum we had."
Crafton is 3rd in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings as the season heads for turn four, and he knows the margin for error in his championship quest is razor-thin at best.
"We've been fortunate so far to be able to put ourselves in position for good things to happen, and a big part of that has been keeping our focus on the race in front of us and not looking ahead, " Crafton said. "This series is too competitive, there are too many good drivers, to worry about things we can't control. You can go from hero to zero pretty quickly here. We'll do what we always do…prepare the best we can and keep looking for ways to get better. You can't afford to bring anything less than your best each week."
In 7 starts at New Hampshire, Crafton has finished in the top-10 three times. His best finish was 8th in '05.
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