Crafton won’t talk championship until after 'Dega

Equipped with a commanding 19-point lead over his ThorSport teammate Johnny Sauter with five races left in the season, Matt Crafton seems well on his way to becoming the first repeat champion in the 20-year history of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

Despite his lead and momentum from a trio of consecutive top-three finishes, the 38-year-old does not want to set his sights on his second driver points championship just yet.

“I’m looking forward to the next thing we’re going to do at Talladega. We get through that and then I’ll start looking (towards Homestead),” Crafton said. “I’m not even going to worry about it to be honest. “I’m going to go into each and every race to just go to win. If we get through Talladega, I’ll feel a lot better at that point.”

Crafton has struggled at Talladega throughout his career. In eight starts at the 2.66-mile track, he claims an average finish of 15.5 – almost four places lower than his career mark of 11.8. The driver most likely to catch him, Sauter, boasts a 7.0 average finish at Talladega and took the checkered flag in last year’s race there.

“I’m not even a little bit worried about 19 points," Crafton said. “It could be one point. I could be 19 points back. I’m not even worried about that to be totally honest. I’m worried about just going each and every week, do what we keep doing, do what we started doing at the beginning of the year, go there to win races and the points will come.”

NASCAR Wire Service