For the sixth time this season, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) will invade an intermediate-style race track, the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, for the 18th annual UNOH 225 on Thursday night, July 9. With three previous wins already this season, all on intermediate tracks; Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS, and Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Matt Crafton, driver of the No. 88 Ideal Door/Menards Toyota Tundra, is looking for his fourth win of the season and his first in the “Bluegrass State.”
Crafton, the current NCWTS point leader and two-time defending series champion, has 16 starts at Kentucky Speedway, the most of any active series driver entered. In fact, the ThorSport Racing driver is tied for the most top-five finishes (four), leads all active series drivers with the most top-10 finishes (11), has completed the most laps (2230), and has the most lead lap finishes (10) of any other driver entered in the 150-lap event. Additionally, according to NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics, Crafton leads all drivers in Laps in the Top 15 (1342), making Crafton an “Ideal” candidate for victory lane on Thursday night.
Sounding off – Matt Crafton:
“Kentucky Speedway and I have a love-hate relationship to be quite honest – it’s been really good to us at times and really bad for us too. The first year Junior (Joiner, crew chief) and I went there together; we sat on the pole, ran well and finished decent. Unfortunately, the last two years haven’t been as good to us. In 2013, we just fought handling issues over the bumps all day, last year we had a broken side skirt which plagued the handling. We’ve learned a lot over the last two years and I feel confident in what we’ve got going back this year.”
Thorsport PR
