The steady performance of series veteran Matt Crafton and a group of talented youngsters defined this year’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
With over a decade of racing in the Trucks, Crafton finally climbed the mountain in 2013 with a solid campaign that featured a win at Kansas and an impressive 19 Top-10s (including a streak of 16 consecutive Top-10s to open the year) in 22 starts.
He wound up clinching the title just by starting the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and also became the first Truck champion to complete every lap in a season – in this year’s case, 3,391 laps.
Crafton was also in contention to win the CWTS owner’s championship for his No. 88 ThorSport Racing team at Homestead, but fell just short of that prize after he sustained damage during a series of multiple green-white-checkered-attempts at the finish.
Instead, the No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports team won it after its namesake, Sprint Cup star Kyle Busch, took the Homestead race. That put the No. 51 and No. 88 in a deadlock in the owner’s standings, but the No. 51’s seven wins on the Truck tour trumped Crafton’s aforementioned lone win at Kansas.
Even with the driver’s championship in his pocket, Crafton still had a foul taste in his mouth, calling the near-miss on the owner’s championship “disgusting.” It was one of the few things that didn’t go his way this year.
Still, it was a tremendous year for him, and the same goes for the series’ up-and-comers that will look to leave their mark on NASCAR in the years ahead.
Despite falling to Crafton in the driver’s championship, Ty Dillon still claimed a pair of victories en route to a runner-up finish in the standings ahead of 2012 series champ James Buescher, who now makes the jump to the NASCAR Nationwide Series in 2014.
Then there’s the five first-time winners.
Kyle Larson, who is set to move up to Sprint Cup next year with Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, was able to claim his first career win at Rockingham Speedway.
Jeb Burton, the son of former Daytona 500 champion Ward, scored a W at Texas (and also led the Trucks with seven poles) while Darrell Wallace Jr. made history at Martinsville, becoming the first African-American to win a national series race in almost 50 years.
Also in this group were two drivers who took turns this year as the youngest winner in CWTS history. Chase Elliott’s September win in Canada had him earn that honor initially, but in the next-to-last race of the year, Erik Jones – aged 17 years, five months, nine days – grabbed it with his win at Phoenix.
But with that said, one could argue Elliott’s win was the most memorable “first” of them all. Elliott fought Ty Dillon over hill and dale in the final lap at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and it culminated with Elliott punting Dillon into the tire barriers on the final corner and going on to the checkered flag.
That set off a post-race skirmish between the crews of the two drivers, who also had a confrontation among themselves shortly afterwards. However, Elliott and Dillon were ultimately overshadowed by another post-race incident that had Max Papis get slapped by the girlfriend of rival driver Mike Skeen after they also made contact in the final corner.
An unforgettable moment, for sure. However, when you take the entire season into account, nothing tops the Trucks taking to the dirt at the famed Eldora Speedway for the “Mudsummer Classic.”
Heavily hyped going in, the event marked NASCAR’s first national series race on dirt in over four decades, and a capacity crowd got their money’s worth as Austin Dillon lead a race-high 63 laps in winning the historic event.
In a time where emphasis continues to be placed on generating drama by any means necessary, the “Mudsummer Classic” was the real deal. One hopes it becomes a tradition.
It was not the first time it has been done, but a rider winning in his Motocross debut is rare as the results show Jett Lawrence swept the motos at Fox Raceway in Pala, California and took the early points lead.Dylan Ferrandis may not be quite 100 percent yet, but he was good enough to finish on the podium at Fox Raceway – Align Media
Lawrence became the 16th rider to win in his Motocross debut and was the 10th rider to do so in the season opener, At 19, he wasn’t the youngest to perform the feat; Rick Johnson was 17 in 1982 when he won the lidlifter at Hangtown, the site of next week’s race, but Lawrence’s inaugural win bodes well. The last time a rider performed this feat, Dylan Ferrandis went on to win the 2021 Motocross championship as a rookie in 2021.
Ferrandis did not sweep the motos that season while Lawrence’s performance on Saturday was perfect. He paced both practice sessions, earned the holeshot in each race and finished first in both motos after leading every lap to score maximum points. Lawrence started the weekend needing 85 points to climb into 20th in the combined SuperMotocross standings for the 450 class. Earning 50 with his perfect Motocross results at Fox Raceway, he is nearly 60 percent of the way to his goal.
Chase Sexton was second across the board. He qualified in the second position and finished 2-2 in his motos. In the first race, he was a relatively distant runner-up behind Lawrence, crossing the finish line a little more than 10 seconds ahead. He got a great start in Moto 2 and pushed Lawrence for the entire race, never getting further back than three seconds. He tried to pressure Lawrence into making a mistake, but both riders hardly put a wheel wrong and they finished within a second of one another.
Returning from a concussion suffered in the Houston Supercross race earlier this season and exacerbated at Daytona, Ferrandis finished third in both motos to take third overall. His most important task at hand this week was to avoid trouble and start the Motocross season healthy at Fox Raceway so he can begin to accumulate strong results and move up in SuperMotocross points.
Ferrandis entered this round 25th in the standings and left Pala in 19th. With that position, he has an automatic invitation to the feature starting grid in the SuperMotocross World Championship as long as he does not fall back.
Aaron Plessinger and Cooper Webb both ended the race with 34 points, but Plessinger had the tiebreaker with a better finish in the second race. Notably, both riders sustained injury sometime during the season, but Plessinger had an advantage by coming back a week sooner in Salt Lak City for the Supercross finale. He finished second in that race.
Webb was cleared late in the week by doctors after being on concussion protocol from a vicious strike to his helmet in a Nashville Supercross heat race late in the season. He made a beeline to the track to run the Motocross opener. After missing last year’s outdoor season, he wanted to make certain that did not happen again. He still has a solid opportunity to catch Sexton for the No. 1 overall seed in the SuperMotocross standings., but he will need to make up 78 points.
For the first time in history, Pro Motocross results from Fox Raceway show brothers as winners on the same day.
Battling a rib injury suffered practicing earlier in the week, Hunter Lawrence got a poor start to Moto 1 and had to overcome his 10th-place standing at the end of Lap 1. He methodically worked his way toward the front but might have settled for a position off the podium if not for heavy traffic in the closing laps. Lawrence was able to get through the field quicker than Justin Cooper and Jo Shimoda to finish third.
Hunter Lawrence overcame sore ribs to score the overall 250 win at Fox Raceway – Align Media
Lawrence’s second moto was much stronger. He earned the holeshot and led all 15 laps of the race to win by a more than eight seconds.
Haiden Deegan didn’t feel any pressure heading into this round. No one expected much in his third Motocross National and he would have been happy with anything in the top five. At least that’s what he said in the post-race news conference. Deegan said similar things after finishing fourth in his first Supercross race this season. In a stacked field of 40 riders at Fox Raceway, “Danger Boy” finished sixth in Moto 1 and second in Moto 2 for the second-place finish overall.
In only his third Pro Motocross National, Haiden Deegan finished second overall. – Align Media
RJ Hampshire had an eventful weekend. He dominated Moto 1 and won by a healthy margin, making a statement about how he will race now that Jett Lawrence is no longer in the field. He was a victim of mayhem in Turn 2 of Moto 2, which forced him to the ground. Another crash on an uphill portion of the track later that same lap put him in 39th. Hampshire salvaged as many points as he could and finished 11th in the second race to stand on the final box of the podium.
Tom Vialle came within a lap of scoring his first career podium. He had the position based on a tiebreaker over Justin Cooper and Maximus Vohland until Hampshire passed two riders on the final lap and earned one point more than that threesome. Instead, Vialle settled for his first podium in an individual moto with a 7-3 in the two races. More accustomed to this style of racing, Vialle will be a factor in the coming rounds.
Cooper finished with a 5-4 in the two motos to sweep the top five and take fourth-place overall. Cooper started five rounds in the 450 class in Supercross this season and none on a 250, so he is starting with zero points in the SuperMotocross seeding, but with runs like this it won’t take long to make up the 89 he needs to climb to 20th.
One of the best performances of the weekend was put in by Vohland. He finished second in Moto 1 and had to withstand pressure from Lawrence in the closing lap. A poor start of 16th in the second race forced him to play catchup and he could only climb to ninth at the checkers.
