Crafton nudges Dillon for second career win

[media-credit name=”Kyle Ocker” align=”alignright” width=”229″][/media-credit]

Matt Crafton broke a 79 race winless streak and recorded his second win at Iowa Speedway on Saturday, nudging defending race winner Austin Dillon by two car lengths at the stripe.

Crafton’s last win came at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 16, 2008. His victory also broke the streak of pole winners going on to win the race at Iowa Speedway’s two races.

“It’s a huge momentum builder.  It was awesome. It was a long time since 2008.” Crafton said.

Dillon dominated for most of the night until a bad late pit stop placed him back in eight place on the restart.

“I don’t know what happened. I saw they stumbled in the front, lost a tire. Never got an explanation. My guys do a great job on pit row, and (Saturday) night wasn’t their night.” Dillon said.

Pole sitter David Mayhew led a few laps at the beginning of the race, finishing third. Johnny Sauter and Joey Coulter rounded out the top five finishers.

Dillon fell short of making it a Dillon family sweep after his brother Ty Dillon won the ARCA Series race held before the Truck Series event.

Dillon now trails Sauter by 22 points in the Camping World Truck Series driver standings.

“I’m really proud of Matt tonight, he earned this win. ThorSport Racing just moved all its racing operations this week into the new shop, and the guys are all working overtime. To come out here and get a win and a top five finish after a really long week in the shop, that’s pretty amazing. We had more in us on the No. 13 Safe Auto/Karl Chevrolet team tonight, but we’ll take a top five after all that happened to us in this race. It’s a solid finish, and we’ll build on that into Nashville.” Sauter said.