Fri May 16 23:53:47 2008

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Crafton cashes in at Lowe's

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Concord, NC (Sports Network) - Matt Crafton captured Friday night's North Carolina Education Lottery 200 Craftsman Truck Series race at the Lowe's Motor Speedway. It took Crafton a Craftsman Truck Series record 178 races to collect his first victory.

Crafton took advantage of a late-race crash to win his first career Craftsman Truck Series race. The No.88 ThorSport Racing Chevrolet driver crossed the finish line 0.184 seconds ahead of Chad McCumbee.

Brendan Gaughan, Erik Darnell and Rick Crawford completed the top-five.

Kyle Busch had the fastest truck and was the dominate driver for a majority of the race. But a late-crash ended Busch's hopes of winning the race.

With 36 laps to go a caution flag flew for debris. Different strategies played out on pit road as the leaders took their final pit stops.

Todd Bodine inherited the lead by not stopping. Darnell followed in second by taking a fuel-only stop and Sprague settled into third with a two-tire stop. Hornaday Jr. and Busch restarted fourth and fifth, respectively. Both drivers took four-tire stops and fuel.

Hornaday Jr. and Busch battled hard on the restart trying to make their way back to the front. But Hornaday Jr. made a controversial move and hit Busch's truck into the wall. Busch went down pit road during the caution to repair damage to his truck, but there was too much damage to continue fighting for the win.

When everything calmed down, the race got restarted with 26 laps remaining Darnell led Bodine, Benson, Crafton and Mike Skinner.

Darnell still held the lead when the next caution flag flew with 20 laps to go for a Dennis Setzer spin out. Busch came back down pit road under the caution to get more repairs to his truck.

The race went back to green with 16 to go and Darnell led Benson, Bodine, Crafton and Skinner. Busch started the restart 15th. Benson was about to pass Darnell for the lead when the caution flag flew with 11 laps to go.

Darnell made a huge mistake by spinning his tires on the restart with seven laps remaining. This allowed Benson to fly by him on the outside for first. But NASCAR officials gave Benson the black flag for jumping the restart.

Crafton inherited the race lead with Hornaday Jr., Bodine, McCumbee and Gaughan following behind.

Then with four laps left, Hornaday Jr. squeezed past Bodine and cut him off. Bodine was irate at the move and seemed to intentionally knock Hornaday Jr. offline through the tri-oval, something even a rookie knows not to do, and it sent the defending series champion spinning through the infield. Bodine was penalized and later explained that he was just trying to push Hornaday Jr. up to leader Crafton.

All this action set up an exciting green-white-checkered finish. Crafton led McCumbee and Gaughan to the green flag. Crafton and McCumbee were both looking for their first career wins. Crafton got a great restart an opened a lead of two lengths and was able to hold off McCumbee for his first victory.

Busch, who has been on fire this season, led the field to the green flag for 134 laps of racing. The No.51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota was still the leader by almost a five-second margin with 50 laps remaining.

Things got interesting as Hornaday Jr. slowly cut Busch's lead down to two seconds. It was reported that Busch was conserving fuel because there was a possibility he could be low on fuel if the rest of the race had no cautions.

This led to the wild finish.

Hornaday Jr. now leads second-place Crawford by just five points. Bodine is third, 38 points back with Crafton fourth just 45 points behind.

The next race the series is set for Saturday, May 24th at the Mansfield Motorsports Speedway.