Matt Crafton lands final spot in Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, edging out Friesen
RICHMOND, Va. — Matt Crafton’s bid for the final berth in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs field bore fruit Saturday at Richmond Raceway, and he converted on a night where he merely needed to hold serve. A nothing-flashy performance did the job at the expense of fellow veteran Stewart Friesen, the first driver out.
Crafton gathered up a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s Worldwide Express 250, the regular-season finale that determined the 10-driver playoff grid. The effort was enough to unofficially clear the elimination line by 39 points, ensuring the ThorSport Racing driver will have a shot at a fourth series championship in the seven races that follow.
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“We definitely earned it today, and we did everything to give it away throughout the year,” Crafton said. “I mean, from getting run over by our teammate (Hailie Deegan) in Texas (at Circuit of The Americas) earlier this year. I finished running like 10th and finished 32nd. There was so many different things, had electrical issues, and we blew all of our feet off, and luckily, we got where we are today and had a shot, to be honest.”
Crafton qualified eighth for the 250-lapper, providing his No. 88 ThorSport Racing Ford with a 15-position edge over Friesen at the green flag. He stayed steady throughout and used finishes of fifth and seventh at the stage breaks to pad 10 points onto his season total.
Friesen, who entered the race with a nine-point deficit in the standings, started 23rd in his No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota and struggled to make hay in the early going. He dropped one lap down on Lap 48 and slipped to 26th place by the end of Stage 1, 22 laps later. Friesen moved to 20th place by the end of Stage 2 but just missed out on being the beneficiary of the race’s third caution for Justin Carroll’s looping spin.
The free pass instead went to Deegan, forcing Friesen to stay out during the Stage 2 intermission to take a wave-around to get back on the lead lap. Without fresh tires, he dropped back to one lap down early in the final stage and lost another lap to the leader midway through. He wound up three laps down in 27th by the end and remarked post-race: “We brought a dull knife to a gunfight tonight.”
“All of it,” said Friesen when asked about the battles with his truck’s balance. “I don’t know. We were in the wrong league tonight, that’s for sure.”
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Friesen lamented the misfortune he’d encountered over the last month in an abrasive transmission over the No. 52 team radio. The most recent sting was a late-race crash last weekend at Pocono Raceway, where he absorbed his worst finish of the season in 32nd, but he indicated that the hardships went beyond that.
“Oh, yeah,” said Friesen. “We’ve had hauler problems, the dirt mod fuel pressure the other night, trailer broke down, flights canceled, we were a quarter-truck away from getting the lucky dog tonight when the caution comes out. … I’ve been in this thing a long time, and it’s frustrating, you know. But that’s how it goes.”
At the other end of the playoff picture, Corey Heim clinched the Regular Season Championship trophy early on, finishing third in Stage 1 to seal an insurmountable lead in the Craftsman Truck Series standings. The 21-year-old driver headed the standings despite missing last month’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway with illness.
Heim led briefly for nine laps and ultimately finished sixth Saturday night at Richmond, and he enters the seven-race postseason as a two-time winner. He’ll begin his quest for the big year-end trophy in the playoff opener Aug. 11 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (9 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), clinging to an eight-point advantage over defending series champ Zane Smith.
“I would certainly say so,” Heim said when asked if he was among the early title favorites. “We‘ve been about the most consistent these last two or three months. If we can carry that into the playoffs, we will be tough to beat. Definitely have to improve on tonight, but it‘s a different track — unique. We‘ve got a couple more short tracks coming up, and I think we will be good.”
