Matt Crafton Announces Retirement: A Look Back at the Truck Champion’s Career
Three-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Matt Crafton announced his retirement from the series on Monday, following the 2025 season. Crafton will finish his career having won the 2013, 2014, and 2019 truck series titles. His successor in the ThorSport Racing 88 Ford will be his teammate and 2024 truck series champion, Ty Majeski. Throughout his 25 years behind the wheel full-time, Crafton finished in the top 10 in points 19 times.
The first start of his career came in 2000 at Auto Club Speedway, where he started 17th and finished ninth. That was the beginning of a successful career to come. In the end, Crafton sits 11th all-time in the truck series with 15 wins and is tied for second all-time with Jack Sprague with three series titles. He has also won 16 pole positions and has started 585 races.
Crafton took part in his first full-time truck series season in 2001, driving the No. 88 truck for SealMaster Racing, the team with which he made his first career start. Following his stint with SealMaster and a season with Kevin Harvick Inc. in the 2004 season, Crafton landed at ThorSport Racing and was put in the No. 88 Menards Toyota, a combination that became synonymous with Crafton and the truck series. Thorsport was where Crafton’s career took off. In 2008, he won his first career race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. That win propelled him to a fifth-place finish in the point standings.
Career win number two took a little longer to nab, as it wasn’t until the 2011 running of the Lucas Oil 200 at Iowa Speedway that Crafton would accomplish that feat. Though he went winless in 2012, 2013 was Crafton’s year. In the 22 races that season, Crafton brought home 19 top-fives, seven top-10s, and a win at Kansas Speedway en route to his first career truck series championship. The following season, Crafton backed it up with another championship in 2014, a season where he scored 17 top-10s, 13 top-fives, and two wins.
From 2013 to 2017, Crafton was his most consistent as a driver. In that span, he won 12 races and two championships. Though he didn’t hit victory lane in 2018 or 2019, he still finished in the top 10 in over half the races each season and survived the Playoffs to capture the 2019 championship. Crafton remains the first and only driver in NASCAR’s top three series to win a championship in the playoff era without scoring a win that season. Crafton’s most recent win currently stands as the 2020 Kansas race, and he will have seven more chances to take the checkered flag before he concludes his career.
