That honor went to Erik Jones, who cemented his first series title in Friday night’s Ford EcoBoost 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a sixth-place finish.
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“I’ve had great three years with these guys (at KBM) and I can’t think of a better way to thank them”. “We ever put ourselves in a position to be in a situation we didn’t want to be in. The last five races, six races, I knew I was going to have to be that much more aggressive, and I was”. However, that didn’t mean he wasn’t determined to do absolutely everything in his power this weekend. He started fifth, one position behind Reddick, but fell back to 10th by Lap 15 while complaining the truck was tight.
Crafton then led for the first 31 laps, but his pace started to fade shortly before the first round of green flag pit stops allowing Nemechek to go to the front for the first time.
Reddick kicked off his first full season in the Brad Keselowski Racing No. 19 Ford with a victory in the season-opening race at Daytona worldwide Speedway.
Jones did better than at, using his substantial cushion in the standings to finish sixth and win the title in his rookie season by 15 points over Tyler Reddick. He turned a fast lap of 167.551 miles per hour. Although not a front-runner for a third-straight title, Crafton has had a career-best season in other areas, claiming a career-high five wins and three poles, so far, with one race remaining in the 2015 season.
The win is the 11th of his career, all coming at ThorSport Racing.
“Tonight’s win was awesome”, he said. “There were times this season when I didn’t think we could do this”. So that’s what we did tonight.
“We had a phenomenal season, six wins and 780 laps we led”. That’s a pretty good season.
“I’d be really, really happy if we can bring that back to KBM”.
Tyler Reddick: Finished third Friday and was runner-up behind Jones for the championship.
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Team owner Kyle Busch said capturing the first driver’s title was special to everyone at KBM.
