Season preview: Matt Crafton

Strides: Matt Crafton found paydirt early in the season, crossing off a career goal with his first-ever victory in 25 tries at Martinsville Speedway. Four races later, he scored a dominant triumph at Texas Motor Speedway, covering the field in both horsepower and fuel economy for win No. 5 in his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career.

Though his 2014 season lacked the stellar start from the previous year, when he opened with top-10s in the first 16 races, Crafton was more frequently found in the top five, where he finished a career-best 13 times. Moreover, his closing kick — eight top-fives in the last 11 races — helped him re-take the points lead in September and hold it down the stretch.

Though he kept mum about his title hopes over the season’s latter stages, Crafton was finally able to let loose after a ninth-place finish in the Homestead-Miami Speedway finale clinched his second straight championship, the first repeat in series history.

“I think I’m the luckiest man on earth without a doubt,” Crafton said. “I get paid to do what I love to do. I mean, there’s not a whole lot of people that can say that. Every day I wake up, I feel very blessed.”

Setbacks: Though Crafton’s No. 88 ThorSport entry, helmed by crew chief Carl Joiner Jr., was among the most bulletproof trucks in the garage for most of the season, the path to the championship came with some bumps. His Texas victory was bookended by the season’s only two DNFs, a pair of crashes that sidelined him in May at Dover and in June at Gateway. Crafton also placed outside the top-10 in both restrictor-plate races (Daytona, Talladega).

But Crafton seemed just as irked — if not more — at the races that came oh-so-close to landing him in Victory Lane. With five runner-up finishes and four more third-place efforts over the course of the year, some sore feelings lingered about what could have been.

“I made a promise to Junior that — this last winter that we were going to go out and lead more laps and win more races. And like I said, we led a ton more laps and we won two races and definitely had the capability to win more if we didn’t have the bad luck that we had there in the middle part of the season. It’s a damn shame because I feel like we should have at least won five races without a doubt.”

Quoteworthy: “There’s been spots and points of brilliance and we’re going to get to the top of this hill, and I knew we would eventually, but there was definitely a lot of times there was a lot of aggravation and stuff that we had to go through to get here, to get the perseverance to get here. That makes it that much sweeter.”

What’s next: Why mess with success? Crafton will be back with ThorSport, working again with Joiner atop the pit box and with the familiar day-glo yellow colors of sponsor Menard’s on the No. 88.

The pressure now rests on Crafton’s chances of securing a three-peat in one of NASCAR’s most competitive and balanced series. Only two drivers in NASCAR’s top division have ever accomplished such a streak — Cale Yarborough, who is already in the NASCAR Hall of Fame; and Jimmie Johnson, a first-ballot lock for enshrinement.

“I feel very good about going into 2015 and maybe making it three in a row,” Crafton said after hoisting the championship trophy at Homestead. “That would be — there’s no doubt that we can. I’ve said it’s all about these guys that build these trucks up in Sandusky, Ohio, and having the owners that give us all the tools, Duke and Rhonda Thorson.”