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Martinsville II: Matt Crafton race report

Crafton Keeps Top-10 Streak Alive at Martinsville Martinsville, Va. (October 23, 2010) -- Despite the typical short track beating and banging, Matt Crafton was able to extend his top-ten finishes streak to 12 consecutive races with a ...

Crafton Keeps Top-10 Streak Alive at Martinsville

Martinsville, Va. (October 23, 2010) -- Despite the typical short track beating and banging, Matt Crafton was able to extend his top-ten finishes streak to 12 consecutive races with a tenth-place finish in Saturday's Kroger 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.

Crafton started second and settled in among the top five early before pitting under an early caution for tires and fuel. Crafton worked his way back up through the field and pitted again with 50 laps to go, but a spate of caution flags kept the number of green flag laps to a minimum and hampered his chances of racing back through the field.

"It's good to come out of here and the top-ten streak is alive, but that's not really what our goal was today," Crafton said. "We had a good truck but it just wasn't quite good enough to get up there and race for the win. It was probably a fifth to seventh place truck we just didn't have enough laps at the end to get back up there. It's always a gamble you take when you pit late in the race at Martinsville and it bit us this time. We're glad we were up in the top ten but we'd be a lot happier to come out of here with a top five."

Crafton was nearly swept up in one of the five cautions that slowed the race's final 50 laps.

"It looked like the 3 (Austin Dillon) and the 17 (Timothy Peters) got together coming off turn two," Crafton said. "Peters fought it all the way down the backstretch and wasn't ever able to get it back under control. I was stacked up with two guys underneath me and we caught him going into the turn and he tried to turn in and bounced off me. We're lucky he hit square and didn't get into the right rear tire. We could have easily ended up in the wall too."

Crafton stays in fifth position in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship standings, breaking a tie with Peters to claim the position. He closed the gap on fourth-place Dillon to just 16 points and maintains a 30 point lead over sixth-place Ron Hornaday.

Next up for Crafton and the No. 88 Menards/SealBest Chevrolet is the Mountain Dew 250 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday October 30.

-source: tsr

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