Ricky Craven
Ricky Craven
Richard Allen "Ricky" Cravenis an ESPN broadcaster who works as a NASCAR analyst for the network. Prior to his ESPN duties, he was a NASCAR driver who won in four different series—the K&N Pro Series, and the three national series. He occasionally served as a pit reporter when NASCAR aired on TBS in the mid-1990s. Craven is perhaps most well known for winning the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, beating Kurt Busch in the closest finish in Cup Series history...
ProfessionRace Car Driver
Date of Birth24 May 1966
auto minds stayed true
We made up our minds what we wanted out of auto racing, and we stayed with it. You look at where he's at, and at the end of the day he was true to his course.
business next
It has become big business and when you look at next year's schedule,
business date miss perfect second
From a driver's standpoint, I'm really going to miss Rockingham and that second date at Darlington. That's from a driver's standpoint, but from a business standpoint, it makes perfect sense.
came challenged coming expected familiar gates knew series strong struggle
I expected to be challenged coming into this season, ... We knew that this was a new series and there were some newer things, but we were familiar with some things. We expected to struggle early, but we came out of the gates very strong and we were very consistent. Then we just struggled, but we're still battling.
bring came cars caution eight four laps late nine three together
If a caution comes out late in the race, it's a free-for all. When the caution came out in the '70s, all it did was bring three or four cars together because 10th place was eight or nine laps down.
fuel race save
If we come into the race with the idea that we have to do everything we can to save fuel, there will be 36 cautions and fuel will be irrelevant,
careful
You have to be careful because you could make this vanilla,
expect finishes seen supported
It's going to be supported and it's going to be a big event. I expect we'll see the same finishes that we've seen here in the past.
favorites good
It's good for the sport because every sport has favorites and underdogs.
reward
It's a sport that will reward you for being selfish.
came ended fact fuel mileage teams
The fact is, we didn't get the fuel mileage the other teams got, ... As a result, we ended up having to stop, which was very disappointing. Essentially, we came up a half-gallon short.
days fact
The fact is that some days are not your days and some days you get lucky. Over the long haul, that probably evens out.
good race track
This race track has been good to me,
bit sudden
Then all of a sudden things started going wrong, ... It was a bit strange.