Matt Crafton filling in for Cody Ware at Bristol Dirt

Three-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Matt Crafton only has two career Cup Series starts, curiously all coming in substitute duty. That will continue on Sunday as he takes over the #51 Ford Mustang from Cody Ware, who has a personal situation to attend to as the Cup Series heads to the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Race.

“Cody Ware will step away from racing this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway to focus on a personal matter,” reads a statement from Rick Ware Racing. “Matt Crafton will drive the No. 51 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing. Crafton has more than 500 overall-starts in his NASCAR career, winning back-to-back NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championships in 2013 and 2014.

“The Ware family asks that their privacy be respected during this time.”

Despite Crafton’s Truck successes, nearly all of his Cup experience has been in relief duty dating as far back as 2008 and 2009, when he qualified the Cup car of Robby Gordon at Dover and Fontana while Gordon was respectively competing in the Baja 500 and Baja 1000. Five years later, he filled in for Paul Menard and Martin Truex Jr. for Fontana and Michigan qualifying when both were away on family matters; an even more unusual substitution took place at 2014 preseason Daytona testing when he subbed for Menard after a pipe burst at the latter’s house. Crafton has long been sponsored by Menard’s family business Menards, through which he also developed ties with Gordon, while Truex turned to him as a fellow Toyota driver.

Even when he finally got to see Cup racing action, all have been as injury substitutes: the 2015 Daytona 500 for Kyle Busch who had broken his legs, the 2019 fall Talladega race as a mid-race replacement for Menard as he dealt with neck pain, and that year’s Martinsville event after Matt Tifft was hospitalised for a seizure. The only time Crafton entered a Cup event on his own without circumstance was in 2014 at Indianapolis when he failed to qualify for RAB Racing.

The decision to select Crafton likely comes thanks to his experience, both overall considering his three Truck Series titles and on dirt. He scored top-ten finishes in all seven Truck races at Eldora Speedway from 2013 to 2019 including a win in 2017, while placing fourteenth and ninth in two Bristol Dirt events. Crafton also has late model and off-road racing experience.

Ware is currently thirty-first in Cup points with a best finish of fourteenth at the Daytona 500. Meanwhile, Crafton sits fifth in the Truck standings.