Nascar Race Today

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - Matt Crafton can look at the stat sheet and know why he will be celebrating the 2013 Camping World Truck Series championship Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

With just two finishes outside the top 10 and no races in which he failed to finish, Crafton put himself in position of just having to show up, get in his truck and start the engine for the Ford 200 Friday night to clinch the title. He did just that to make his accomplishment official. Involved in a late wreck in the race, Crafton had his worst finish of the season in 21st but remained on the lead lap, completing every lap of every race during the season.

"It's an awesome accomplishment to be able to say we're going to be (champions)," Crafton said Thursday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

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Crafton has one victory this year and had such a big lead in the standings that NASCAR didn't even bother asking second-place Ty Dillon to attend the championship contenders press conference Thursday.

The 37-year-old Crafton has had a great season that he believes could have been even better. His team did not win the owners championship - Kyle Busch's victory in the finale Friday resulted in a tie atop the owners points with the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 team owning the tiebreaker having more wins.

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"The last third of a season, the truck hasn't been where it was capable of," Crafton said. "I can honestly say it sucks points racing. We haven't points raced, just riding around, but at the same time we're not going to do something stupid to get ourselves caught up and lose a bunch of points.

"On these restarts, there's so much to be made, I think we gave up a little bit more than what we wanted to."

Crafton is a staple of the truck series, having started 315 races since 2000. His team owners, Duke and Rhonda Thorson, began competing in the series in 1996. The Sandusky, Ohio-based ThorSport Motorsports team is celebrating its first NASCAR truck title.

"He never had the chance to move up," Brendan Gaughan, a former Cup driver who competed full time in the truck series this year, said about Crafton.

"He never got the opportunities like some of us did and he slugged it out and he's sticking with a team that is in Sandusky, Ohio, and people say you couldn't do it. ... It's super exciting to see a guy like Matt do it."

And Crafton seems like he's OK with that.

"I'm getting the opportunity to do what I love to do: Race, be competitive, being able to win races and win a championship," Crafton said. "I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I would love to run some Cup races, Nationwide races in some competitive stuff, no doubt. Do I want to go up there and move? Not the end of the world if I don't."

Ryan Blaney, a Penske Racing development driver who competes for Brad Keselowski Racing in the trucks, won the rookie title.