Matt Crafton Wins Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway

Matt Crafton survived three late-race restarts in the last fifteen laps to win the Kroger 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

It’s the two-time defending series champion’s second win at the historic half-mile speedway. 

“It’s very big, if you look at the last few races – Talladega, Las Vegas and we’ve led the most laps in all those,” Crafton said. “I have no idea what we led today, but we led enough and we led the right one.”

Crafton took the lead on lap 138 and led the final 63 laps en route to his fifth win on the season.

“You win five races and if you don’t win the championship then it wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “We’ve done our job for the most part and I’ve made mistakes, the team as a whole has made mistakes and we win as a team and we lose as a team.”

John Hunter Nemechek finished second, but said he felt he had a shot at the win.

“I made a mistake on one of the last restarts,” he said. “I hit the curb going into one and slid my tires. It stinks because it cost us a race.”

Cole Custer, who started on the pole and led a race high 96 laps, finished fourth.

Tyler Reddick rounded out the top-five.

Erik Jones, who entered the race with an 18 point lead in the championship standings, finished 10th. He remains the points leader, but now only holds a 10-point advantage over Crafton.

Racing returns to Martinsville Speedway tomorrow for the running of the Goody’s® Headache Relief Shot® 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

The race opens the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at www.martinsvillespeedway.com or by calling 877.RACE.TIX.