Austin Dillon expressed frustration after leading the most laps but finishing second to Matt Crafton in last weekend’s race at Iowa. Still, the 21-year-old driver makes his second trip of the year to Nashville Superspeedway in much better shape points-wise than in April.
Dillon’s Iowa Speedway performance boosted the series sophomore to second in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series points entering Friday night’s Lucas Deep Clean 200 – five spots higher than he ranked in the spring and best of 2010. Johnny Sauter continues to head the standings for the fourth consecutive race, 22 points up on Dillon.
Dillon hopes to improve April’s 11th-place Nashville finish. He was ninth in last year’s second race.
Dillon has seen victory slip away in three recent races.
“We’ve given them away lately; disappointing but good for points,” said Dillon, who won twice as the Sunoco Rookie of the Year in 2010. “It’s disappointing. We just can’t finish … (Iowa), Kentucky and Texas.”
Iowa proved redemptive for Crafton, who snapped a 79-race winless streak dating to 2008 and leapt three spots to the top-five in points. Crafton led the standings earlier this year but four straight finishes outside the top 15 – two of them outside the top 25 – made his championship hopes problematic. He finished sixth in Nashville’s spring stop.
“It’s a huge momentum builder,” said Crafton after collecting his second series victory. He was sixth at Nashville in the spring, a position ahead of ThorSport Racing teammate Sauter. “I’d say the biggest thing after a weekend like we had is just trying to keep that momentum.”
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