Camping World Truck Series veteran Matt Crafton is no stranger to short track racing.
After all, he spent his formative years in karts and midgets before stepping in a Super Late Model to tackle the Featherlite Southwest Tour back in 1999. He won the championship in 2000 and used that as the catapult for a two-decade run in NASCAR.
Over the past several seasons, Crafton has achieved much of what he set out to accomplish, having won two championships and earning a start in the 2015 Daytona 500. Now much of his bucket list material lies in his roots with the NASCAR mainstay starting to spend more time on dirt and short tracks when his schedule allows.
Most recently, this sent Crafton to his second straight start in the Kalamazoo Klash Outlaw Late Model race at Kalamazoo Speedway in Michigan. The event didn’t go as planned with the 40-year-old posting just a 16th place finish for the Bob Fox owned No. 56.
It was his second start of the season in that car and Crafton hopes to get a win in the two more events he has scheduled, including the prestigious Glass City 200 at Toledo Speedway.
“We had planned to run four races with those guys,” Crafton told Short Track Scene last week at Bristol Motor Speedway. “We had run Toledo the day after Kentucky and finished second so this is a good car. We just missed something at Kalamazoo.”
Crafton has actually spent more time in dirt cars over the past several seasons that on asphalt thanks to the addition of Eldora Speedway to the Truck Series schedule. While he doesn’t think any division translates to the trucks at the Ohio speedway, he thinks the experience has aided him regardless.
“I’ve done a lot over the past couple of years — certainly more dirt stuff lately now that we run Eldora,” Crafton said. “Because of that I upped my dirt schedule just to get to get used to that given how quickly those tracks seem to change during the course of a race.
Honestly, none of these Late Model or Modified cars translate but at the same time, it’s dirt experience. Look at Rico or Christopher Bell because their skills seem to translate over to that race. So I figured the more I run the dirt, the better I’ll get there.”
On the asphalt side, Crafton said he’s open to running any major short track event that doesn’t conflict with his NASCAR job with the caveat that it’s competitive and fun. He still has a passion for short track racing and is hoping to do more in the coming years.
“I’ve had more chances to run Late Models recently and absolutely I’d do more,” Crafton said. “I’m not open to anything because I want it to be a good car and I want to run up front, but I’m definitely open to exploring a lot of that.”
