Iowa: Matt Crafton preview

Sandusky, Oh. (July 6, 2010) -- Matt Crafton returns to Iowa Speedway for the second-annual running of the Lucas Oil 200 looking to better last year's sixth-place result. Crafton will be busier than usual this weekend as he competes in both the ...

Sandusky, Oh. (July 6, 2010) -- Matt Crafton returns to Iowa Speedway for the second-annual running of the Lucas Oil 200 looking to better last year's sixth-place result. Crafton will be busier than usual this weekend as he competes in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and the ARCA Racing Series Prairie Meadows 200 in a second Menards-sponsored entry for Kimmel Racing. Crafton will practice and qualify the No. 88 Menards/Ideal Door Chevrolet and practice, qualify, and race the No. 88 Messina Wildlife Control/Menards car in the ARCA Racing Series on Saturday. All told, Crafton will be in the cockpit for nearly eight hours.

How does racing in the ARCA race on Saturday help with getting to victory lane on Sunday in the truck? "I don't care what I am racing, any time I drive I am out there to win. We're taking the ARCA race on Saturday very seriously. On top of that we get another chance to go out and win a race for Menards, and being they are a Midwest company it would be nice to get a couple of wins for them close to home. The ARCA race runs at night and the Camping World Truck race on Sunday is during the day so we won't have a lot of information on what the track will do since the races are at different times, but any laps you make always helps. Getting out there and winning the ARCA race would give us a lot of confidence going into the Truck race on Sunday."

Last year's Truck race was a night and this year's is during the day; is there any information you can use from last year or is this year's race a clean slate? "Last year we got really tight late in the race. It's probably because the track tightens up as it gets cooler but we don't know for sure. But all of the practice we did last year was during the day and this year we practice during the day and race during the day so we should be able to use our practice notes from last season and build on them this year to know what to expect during the race."

Being 7/8 of a mile, does Iowa race more like a short track or a superspeedway? "Iowa drives like a mile and a half track to me. It does have some characteristics of a short track, but the way it drives and the banking reminds me of Kansas or Kentucky. It is really fast so it's not a place you want to get into someone going into the corners. It's not like racing at Martinsville that's for sure."