🇺🇸 Matt Crafton

Matt Crafton is a professional oval-racing specialist competing in NASCAR's national-level stock car championships. He has spent the bulk of his career in the NASCAR Truck series, driving the No. 88 truck for ThorSport Racing, and holds the record for most consecutive starts in that series with 592 consecutive races before stepping down from full-time competition after the 2025 season. He races as an FIA Gold-graded driver, the professional standard in international endurance racing.[1]

Crafton won three NASCAR Truck championships with ThorSport Racing: in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Across 318 starts in the Truck series from 2012 onward, he finished on the podium 51 times and won 13 races, with the overwhelming majority of his starts, 299 of 318, coming on oval tracks. He also made four starts in NASCAR Xfinity in 2013 and 2014, finishing on the podium twice, as well as limited appearances in NASCAR Cup in 2019 and 2023 and a pair of shared-car endurance starts in IMSA Pilot Challenge in 2019. His long tenure in Truck racing places him among the series' most decorated drivers; the record shows he achieved his championships while regularly beaten by Christopher Bell, an elite professional and 2017 Truck champion who raced with him 64 times in that series.[2]

In the Truck series field, Crafton competed closely with two regular opponents who both later won their own championships: Johnny Sauter, the 2016 champion, and Ben Rhodes, who won the title in 2021 and again in 2023. His record against both reflects a closely matched rivalry across multiple seasons. He also shared the grid with elite professionals including Denny Hamlin. After concluding a 25-year full-time career in NASCAR truck racing, Crafton transitioned to a part-time schedule for selected races beginning in 2026.