NASCAR Truck Series at Martinsville 2015 Results: Winner, Standings and Reaction

Two-time NASCAR Truck Series champion Matt Crafton tightened up the standings significantly Saturday at Martinsville Speedway as he took the checkered flag to win a caution-filled Kroger 200.

The victory marks the 39-year-old veteran's fifth win of the season. He beat out John Hunter Nemechek and worked around 12 cautions to enter Victory Lane, which led to a raucous celebration for ThorSport Racing and the No. 88 car.

The NASCAR Truck Series' official Twitter account provided a look at the post-race festivities:

Here is a look at the top 10 finishers in Saturday's race, with full results available at NASCAR.com:

Position	Driver	Car No.
1	Matt Crafton	88
2	John Hunter Nemechek	8
3	Cameron Hayley	13
4	Cole Custer	00
5	Tyler Reddick	19
6	Timothy Peters	17
7	Brandon Jones	33
8	Caleb Holman	75
9	Johnny Sauter	98
10	Erik Jones	4

While the win didn't move Crafton into the top spot in the standings, it did vault him past Tyler Reddick, and he now trails Erik Jones by just 10 points:

Position	Driver	Car No.	Behind Leader	Wins
1	Erik Jones	4	Leader	2
2	Matt Crafton	88	-10	5
3	Tyler Reddick	19	-13	2
4	Johnny Sauter	98	-54	0
5	Timothy Peters	17	-96	1
6	Cameron Hayley	13	-113	0
7	Daniel Hemric	14	-132	0
8	John Wes Townley	05	-149	1
9	Ben Kennedy	11	-181	0
10	Spencer Gallagher	23	-202	0

With just three races remaining on the schedule, Jones continues to control his own destiny in terms of winning his first career Truck Series title, but he is far from free and clear, as Crafton and Reddick continue to make measurable gains.

For the first half of Saturday's race, it looked as though the day would belong to 17-year-old Cole Custer. He led a total of 96 laps and looked like he easily had the best truck on the track.

After great runs in both qualifying and practice, Custer entered the Kroger 200 with a ton of confidence and momentum on his side:

Due to a couple of costly missteps, though, he ultimately had to settle for a fourth-place result.

Saturday's race was a major departure from last week, as the drivers went from the expansive and fast Talladega Superspeedway to the half-mile-long Martinsville.

Timothy Peters, who won at Talladega, quickly found out that Martinsville is a totally different animal, as he spun out on just the sixth lap of the race, per NASCAR Trucks on Twitter:

After two additional cautions came out, Jones and Daniel Suarez got into a dust-up on Lap 72 as the points leader pushed Suarez up the track, as seen in this GIF courtesy of Fox Sports NASCAR:

Despite several stoppages, Custer continued to dominate, due largely to his strong restarts, according to Aaron Clay Burns of Speed Sport:

Peters' tough day continued on the 85th lap, as he spun out for a second time and brought out the fifth caution:

The tide of the race started to change shortly thereafter, as Nemechek passed Custer to take the lead on Lap 107.

In an attempt to regain the lead by beating out Nemechek and Crafton on pit road, Custer earned a speeding penalty, which forced him to go to the end of the lead lap with less than 80 laps remaining.

That left the door open for Crafton, who seized the lead from Nemechek on Lap 138.

After working his way back inside the top 10, Peters had yet another mishap on the 156th lap, as he remarkably spun out for the third time, although he still managed a sixth-place finish despite all his issues:

The 12th and final yellow flag of the day came out on Lap 192 when Jones and a few other cars got into each other.

That put pressure on Crafton to hold off some hard-charging drivers behind him on the restart, but he managed to hold the lead and finish off his 10th career NASCAR Truck Series win.

The victory was a huge one for Crafton, as he continues to close the gap on Jones and now has a fantastic chance to three-peat as Truck Series champion.

He has been in this position before, while protecting a standings lead this late in the season in NASCAR's Truck Series is entirely new to Jones.

While Jones came away with a respectable 10th-place finish, Crafton is clearly in better form right now, which means the youngster must turn things around next week at Texas Motor Speedway, or else he risks allowing a title to slip through his fingers. 

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