Catchfence

Matt Crafton battled handling issues throughout the race on his No. 88 Schrock Cabinetry / Menards Silverado, and fought to a 9th place finish in the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday. It was Crafton’s fourth-consecutive top-10 finish, and eighth overall, at Martinsville.

Crafton lost valuable points in his quest for a first NCWTS championship. He remains in 2nd place in the NCWTS standings, but is now 224 points from the lead with four races left this season.

“We just had a tough day all the way around with our No. 88 Schrock Cabinetry/Menards Chevy,” he said. “It wasn’t for lack of effort. I’m thankful to our guys for all their effort, all the changes they threw at our truck. The guys got the truck to a point where it would be good for the first twenty or thirty laps of a run, but then it would just really fall off, and it just seemed like there was nothing we could do. We were just off a bit all day long. It just wasn’t meant to be for us today. All things considered, after the day we had, to at least bring our truck home in the top-10 is a credit to our guys. It wasn’t the finish we were looking for, obviously, but we’ll be ready at Talladega next week.”

Crafton knows only to expect the unexpected at Talladega.

“Talladega is such a wildcard, such a roll of the dice,” he said. “You just never know what’s gonna happen there. Hopefully, we can put ourselves in position to be there in the last few laps with a shot to win the race. That’s all you can really hope for, and the rest is pretty much out of our control. We’ll bring our best, and we’ll see what happens.”

- ThorSport Racing Press Release