LOUDON, N.H. (AP) — Ron Hornaday isn’t in the mood to start a feud with Matt Crafton.

Sorry, there’s too much at stake for the 51-year-old NASCAR Camping World Trucks veteran to start worrying about getting payback, even if his latest incident with Crafton proved to be a painful experience for both.

The two were dueling for the lead out of a restart four laps from the finish of last week’s race at Gateway when Crafton got under the three-time series champion and send him into the wall.

The real damage came when Hornaday drifted back into the middle of the track and got drilled by another driver, leaving left the rear half of his No. 33 Chevrolet in tatters. His Kevin Harvick Inc. team spent the week trying to piece the machine back together.

While Hornaday winced at the memory on the eve of Saturday’s 200-mile race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he’s not going to spend the race zeroing in on Crafton’s No. 88.

“I can’t worry about one guy, there’s 35 other guys we have got to race against,” Hornaday said. “If I start racing about one guy, the next guy is going to come up and take the championship.”

Hornaday enters the race with a 197-point lead on Crafton, plenty of breathing room but not quite as much as he had month ago when he finished off a series record of five straight wins.

Though he wasn’t exactly thrilled with Crafton’s tactics, Hornaday didn’t dwell on the incident. Besides, he placed part of the blame on himself. If he’d gotten off to a better restart, Crafton wouldn’t have had the chance to get close enough to tap him out of the way.

“All it did was put a fire underneath us,” Hornaday said. “We lost some points. We’re going to have to get them back.”

He’ll get his chance at one of his favorite tracks. Hornaday has won three times at New Hampshire, including each of the last two years.

Hornaday and Crafton talked briefly on Friday morning about the incident, though Crafton didn’t exactly apologize. He salvaged a sixth-place finish after being black flagged for the nudge, a penalty he wasn’t sure he deserved.

“We got together getting down into (turn) one and he got the short end of the deal,” Crafton said. “It wasn’t like we said we were going to wreck Ron Hornaday. … I know he took a hard hit and that’s the last thing I wanted to see, but it’s on to the next one.”

Crafton knows he’ll have his work cut out to catch Hornaday. He’s also not raising the white flag. Three months ago Crafton was feeling pretty comfortable atop the standings before Hornaday ripped off five straight wins.

“You can go from hero to zero in one week, that’s for sure,” Crafton said.

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