Crafton moves one step closer to back-to-back titles

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Zack Albert

Crafton has to finish 21st or better at Homestead to clinch championship

AVONDALE, Ariz. — Matt Crafton entered last season’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series finale needing only to start the race to clinch his first title on a national series level. This year, he’ll head to Homestead-Miami Speedway needing only to avoid catastrophe.

After a crazy Friday night of multiple power outages, lengthy caution periods and delays at Phoenix International Raceway, Crafton held serve atop the standings with a second-place finish in the Lucas Oil 150. His result, combined with a fourth-place run by top challenger Ryan Blaney, enabled the ThorSport Racing veteran to carry a 25-point lead into the last race of the season, meaning he’ll need to finish 21st or better to clinch his second straight championship.

Though their positions in the pecking order are far different with one race left, the two have identical goals for the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 200 (Nov. 14, 8 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1).

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"I’m going into Homestead and trying to win the race," Crafton said. "Like I said, that’s been our goal from Daytona. We haven’t looked at the points, focused anything on points. We’ve just gone out and tried to win as many races as possible and we’ve only won two. We’ve had some bad luck leading the race, blew a right-front tire and we’ve finished second too many damn times, too."

Blaney — who finished sixth in the standings in 2013, his first full season in the truck series — won the pole position at Homestead last year and wound up second in the season-ending race. This year, he’ll aim to take that result one spot better while needing some misfortune on Crafton’s end to hoist the championship trophy.

"We’ve gotta have the expectation of winning the race and doing the best we can," Blaney said. "That’s a big deficit and you never know what can happen, but just try to go win the race and maybe other things will play out."

Though their objectives for next weekend are shared, Crafton and Blaney had widely different paths on Friday night. Crafton qualified second and stayed there most of the night behind race winner Erik Jones. Blaney, however, started 17th, survived an early brush with good friend Darrell Wallace Jr., and rallied into the top five in the race’s late stages before a final blip of the track’s electricity contributed to an abbreviated finish after 126 of a scheduled 150 laps.

Blaney’s chances next weekend may be only slightly dimmer than Phoenix’s Friday night lights based on Crafton’s unflappable performance so far. His closing flourish of eight top-five finishes in the last 10 races has allowed him to rise from third to second place in the standings by mid-August and back into the points lead by mid-September.

Crafton’s team plans on bringing the same No. 88 Toyota that surged from last place to third at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in September — more reason for the field to be concerned about a potential Crafton coronation that includes a checkered flag.

"They’ve been really good," Blaney said. "It’s going to be tough to get ’em."

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Posted on November 8, 2014 by Nascar

Organization’s first championship completes trek to top

AVONDALE, Ariz. — It was a deal that came together late, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. believed in its potential from the start.

Now, less than 12 months after signing 18-year-old Chase Elliott as a driver for his No. 9 JR Motorsports NASCAR Nationwide Series team, Earnhardt Jr. is reaping the rewards.

Elliott, competing full time in the series for the first time, wrapped up the series championship Saturday with a fifth-place finish in the DAV 200 at Phoenix International Raceway.

With only one race remaining, next week’s Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Elliott holds an insurmountable 52-point lead on teammate Regan Smith.

Earnhardt is listed as the owner for the organization, along with sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team owner Rick Hendrick. While it’s the first title for JRM, now in its ninth season, it’s not the first for Earnhardt, the sport’s most popular driver. Officially, he won Nationwide Series titles with driver Martin Truex Jr. (2004-05) with Chance 2, in a collaborative effort with Dale Earnhardt Inc.

"It’s very overwhelming, but at the same time we’re very proud and looking forward to more success," Earnhardt said as Saturday’s celebration began to break up. "Hopefully this is a sign of more things to come for us."

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While he can’t catch his teammate, Smith, who leads third-place Brian Scott by 13 points, can secure second next week, which would give JRM a 1-2 finish in the points battle.

Earnhardt said he isn’t surprised at the success of the organization, or his drivers, who have won four of this year’s 32 races.

"Right out of the gate I felt (Chase) and Regan would be very difficult for the competition," he said.

That was indeed the case, as Elliott notched three wins and has been a model of consistency, finishing in the top five 16 times and in the top 10 26 times. Saturday’s 10-place finish by Smith, the winner of the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, was his 25th top-10 this year.

"It’s obviously huge for the organization," Smith said. "It’s been a long time coming for the company, I’d say before either one of us were here, and a lot of people have really worked hard for it and certainly Chase deserves it."

Hendrick, who fields Earnhardt Jr.’s Sprint Cup car along with entries for Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne, said combining what was his former Hendrick Nationwide Series (then Busch Series) program with that of JRM, has "really worked out well."

"It was a great move," he said, "and I’m just really proud of Kelley and Dale because they’ve worked hard. It’s a good building block for our organization, so we’ve put some young guys in there and they get to be crew chiefs, like Greg Ives, so it’s a good Triple-A team for us."

Ives, crew chief for Elliott, will move up to Sprint Cup next season to replace Steve Letarte as Earnhardt’s crew chief.

Earnhardt also noted the talent pipeline created by the union of the organizations. Drivers, crew chiefs and crewmen have been able to advance their careers. And along the way, it’s made the JRM organization stronger.

"We really like where we are," he said. "We’ve learned how to successfully run this program financially and I think we need to stick around for a little while and try to enjoy being a fellow competitor in this series."

Winning the title with Elliott, son of 1988 NASCAR premier series champion Bill Elliott, means much to Earnhardt. The elder Elliott sauntered over after Saturday’s crowd had dispersed to congratulate the owner and share the moment.

"That’s pretty damn cool," Earnhardt said afterward. "I think Bill adds a lot to it, he’s such a genuine person. You see the kind of support system (Chase) has with his mother and family and it makes you just wish so much for him, knowing that he’s got his head on straight and he’s such a good boy. You love to see people like that do good things, because you know he appreciates what he’s doing, where he’s at."

How much does he think of the youngster?

"He’ll be such an easy guy to pull for going down the road," Earnhardt said. "When I retire, he’s going to be my guy. I’m going to be a Chase Elliott fan all the damn way. I want him to do well because I want to pull for Chase Elliott when I’m sitting there watching the races when I’m 65 years old."

The son of seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, Earnhardt Jr. said he imagines "what my dad would think about me and Bill working together, just (stuff) like that. It really blows my mind that we’re getting to work with Bill."

A simple gesture nearly a year ago has resulted in the celebration of a championship. When sponsor NAPA pulled out of Sprint Cup on the heels of penalties levied against Michael Waltrip Racing in September of 2013, the auto parts company wasn’t expected to return.

Even Earnhardt said he didn’t know if the group would be back. But because of their longstanding support of the sport, he said, he decided to give officials a call and suggest they reconsider.

"I wasn’t trying to pitch them anything on my end but I felt like if the sport lost them as a whole, it would create a big void," he said. "They had been a big part of the sport for a really long time and I thought they should reconsider their involvement, whether with us or someone else. I thought they should be in the sport and not to let what happened to them really make that decision for them. I thought they should be around and could enjoy a lot of success if they stuck it out."

As it turns out, he was correct about both NAPA and Elliott, although he takes no credit for the latter.

"I get a lot of credit for finding the talent but Rick picked this guy right out of the mix," he said of Elliott. "He’s been behind him through the K&N deal and the truck deal. Rick has invested a ton in Chase and this was Rick’s opportunity to bring Chase into the Nationwide Series and NAPA thought it was a good deal."

In the end, it was more than a just a good deal; it was a championship-winning deal.

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