Ron Hornaday Halfway to Championship: Craftsman Truck Series Midseason Review

The soon-to-be former Craftsman Truck Series has reached the halfway point in the 2008 seasn, with surprisingly little fanfare despite many interesting stores and, as always, a championship fight that looks to go down to the final race of the year.

The season began at Daytona under the lights, with Todd Bodine taking the win and Kyle Busch following with the next two. It was Busch's show in the season’s first few races, which was then followed by a three-race streak of new winners: a long overdue victory followed by two very different rookies.

Matt Crafton took advantage of late-race shenanigans at LMS to win, accomplishing what many thought he would do years ago.

At Mansfield, Donny Lia shocked the world with an aggressive last lap move around David Starr and Todd Bodine to claim a win in just his seventh series start.

As if that wasn’t enough, the following week at Dover, former F1 pretty boy Scott Speed recorded the win in his sixth series start.

Ron Hornaday has continued to keep the old guard of the series in charge. Hornaday has wins at Kansas, Texas, and Memphis and leads the series points standings as he continues to stamp his name all over the record books.

His KHI teammate Jack Sprague hasn’t run as well as expected, with no wins and only three top-five finishes.

Erik Darnell picked up the pace in the last four races, driving like his career at Roush Fenway is on the line. Darnell picked up the win in a fantastic finish at Michigan, and has continued running in the top-five to move him up the points ladder.

His Roush teammate Colin Braun has been the most consistent rookie this year, despite not having won a race yet. Braun appears headed on the same track as Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch, and Carl Edwards. Don’t forget he won the pole at Mexico City in the Nationwide Series as well.

Bill Davis Racing continues to field a potent fleet in the series with stalwarts Mike Skinner and Johnny Benson and a third truck driven by two rookies with big futures ahead of them in Speed and Michael Annett, who impressed in the ARCA series this season.

Benson’s win this season was a fourth straight at the Milwaukee Mile, which is damn impressive.

Germain Racing has been solid this season, but appears to have fallen off a bit with Justin Marks in the No. 9. Germain has, however, captured some headlines with their support and development of Chrissy Wallace, who appears headed toward a full-time ride in 2009. She’ll make her third career start at Kentucky this week.

I don’t know which driver in this series is more underrated and underappreciated: Rick Crawford or Terry Cook.

Crawford is always there, always in the hunt for top-10s and championships, while Cook has been a multi-race winner in the past and has only been shafted by sponsorship and a steady ride. Add David Starr to that list as well, as a matter of fact.

Finally, it’s time to make some predictions for the rest of the year.

First, there will be two more first-time winners by season’s end, and they will be Colin Braun and Chad McCumbee.

Second, Kyle Busch will win three more races in an effort to get the No. 51 closer to the owner’s championship…but it will be in vain, as this year’s champion will record his fourth in the series—Ron Hornaday.

Oh, by the way, who was it that said Randy Moss’ team would be the real deal? Thank you…thank you very much.