Matt Crafton powers to Truck Series win after others run out of gas

Matt Crafton rolled to a Camping World Truck Series win in the Toyota Tundra 250 at Kansas Speedway on Friday night, taking advantage when others who had been running up front ran short on fuel at the end.

One of the victims was Erik Jones, who otherwise dominated the race. Jones led 151 of the first 161 laps before pitting for fuel with six laps to go. His night then went from bad to worse, as Jones was penalized for speeding on pit road.

Crafton, meanwhile, was running fourth with 12 laps to go, well behind Jones, Tyler Reddick and Daniel Suarez. Jones had a lead of more than three seconds on Reddick when Jones was forced to pit and committed the costly speeding infraction.

Reddick inherited the lead, but held it only briefly before running out of gas on the track while out front with three laps remaining.

Then it was Suarez's turn to lead, but Crafton passed him under green with two to go and Suarez eventually ran out of gas, too, as he was attempting to complete his final lap.

"I said when we took the checkered flag that I would rather be lucky than good sometimes and we definitely were tonight. We definitely didn’t have the fastest truck. I felt we had the second-fastest truck and just lost track position," said Crafton, the two-time defending Truck Series champion.

"I had a bad vibration at one point and took four (tires) and a lot of people took two or no tires. That got us back there. I could catch those guys (Jones and Reddick), but it was just super, super tough to pass. You have to be close enough to be able to sneak one out every once in a while and I've lost them on things like this. Every once in a while when we steal one, I don't feel too bad about it."

Ryan Newman finished second and Johnny Sauter was third. Timothy Peters finished fourth and Cameron Hayley rounded out the top five.

Suarez was able to salvage sixth as he had just enough fuel to coast across the start-finish line, but Jones and Reddick were not as fortunate. Jones had to settle for 11th, one lap down, after clearly driving the fastest truck of the night, and Reddick was scored in 13th at the end of the race.

"We did all we could and I started saving fuel from 30 laps to go," Suarez said. "I was lifting very early and when I was in the draft I was lifting the throttle even on the straightaway. We still ran out of fuel with two laps to go. It is what it is."

Quite simply, Crafton won because he conserved just enough fuel while Suarez and all the other contenders kept running out.

The entire field pitted with 55 laps remaining, just on the upper end of the fuel window, when Ray Black Jr. blew his engine after a long green-flag run. There was some question, however, about Jones getting a full tank of fuel in his truck during his stop, forcing him to come down for the splash of gas with five to go that appeared to cost him the victory.

It was Crafton's seventh career win in the series, and his second in four starts this season. He also won at Atlanta earlier in the season and extended the series points lead he held on Reddick, Jones and Sauter entering Friday's race.

Crafton credited crew chief Carl Joiner with helping him stretch his fuel, although Joiner initially told Crafton he didn't think he could make it to the finish without running out, either.

"I just needed to go out there and go as fast as I could and he told me that we couldn’t make it. He said five (laps) to go, four to go, three to go and I'm like, 'Man, when is he going to bring me down (pit road)?' I saw all these guys running out of fuel and I thought he was going to bring me down on the white (with one to go)," Crafton said. "Finally, I figured we were going for it. My job was easy, but I wouldn't want to be in his position and the guys doing the fuel mileage to run the thing out of fuel and be that guy."

Joiner summed up the night for the No. 88 Toyota team by saying of Crafton's truck: "It was the only one with Sunoco race fuel left in it and that's all that mattered."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.