Ricky Craven

In addition, he made his Winston Cup debut at Rockingham, starting and finishing 34th for Dick Moroso.

Richard Allen Craven (born May 24, 1966) is an American stock car racing analyst and former driver.

Prior to his broadcasting duties, he was a NASCAR driver who won in four different series—the ARCA Menards Series, and the three national series.

In 1984, Craven raced at Wiscasset Speedway in the Late Model Division; in this year he won the track championship along with the Rookie of the Year title.

After that, he began running in the American Canadian Tour, where he had rampant success.

In 1986, he made his NASCAR debut at Oxford Plains Speedway in his own No. 12, finishing 25th after suffering an engine failure.

Four years later, he began running the Busch North Series, winning the Rookie of the Year award.

He occasionally served as a pit reporter when NASCAR aired on TBS in the mid-1990s.

In 1991, he was named the champion in that series, winning ten times in the No. 25 Chevrolet, with two of those ten wins in "combination" races with the Busch Grand National Series, including the prestigious Oxford 250.

He moved to the Busch Series full-time in 1992 in the No. 99 Chevy for Bill Papke, and once again was named Rookie of the Year.

In 1993 and 1994, he finished runner-up to Steve Grissom and David Green, respectively, in the championship standings.

This crash was similar to Jimmy Horton's barrel roll in 1993 where he cleared the track.

Craven's flip completely sheared the catchfence off the turn and NASCAR threw a lengthy red flag to make repairs.

He walked away, but fell to twentieth in points and only had one Top 5 finish and one pole for the rest of the season

At the end of the year, Craven left Hedrick to drive the No. 25 Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports.

Craven finished in the Top 5 in the first two races of the season.

On October 9, 1994, Craven would serve as a pit reporter for TBS's broadcast of that year's Mello Yello 500, serving as a precursor to his broadcasting career.

In 1995, Craven teamed up with Larry Hedrick Motorsports and Kodiak to run for Winston Cup Rookie of the Year.

Craven qualified for all 31 races, finished in the Top 10 four times, and defeated Robert Pressley for the top rookie award.

For his efforts, he was rewarded with a partial ownership share in the team.

He began 1996 with three consecutive Top 10 finishes and his first career pole.

He was fourth in points before the Winston Select 500, during which he was involved in a multi-car wreck.

On lap 130, his car was launched into the air and impacted with the catch fence above the wall before being thrown back onto the track and hit by another car.

He finished third in the 1997 Daytona 500 behind his teammates Terry Labonte in second and Jeff Gordon in first giving Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2-3 sweep of the Daytona 500.

While practicing for the inaugural Interstate Batteries 500, Craven crashed hard into the wall.

He missed two races due to a concussion suffered from the wreck.

Upon his return, he won the Winston Open and finished a then-career-best 19th in points and a total of $1,139,860 in winnings for 1997.

After the 1998 season started, the side effects of the concussion began to appear, and Craven was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, and was forced to miss several races until he recovered.

He returned at his home track at New Hampshire International Speedway later that year won the pole.

After four races, he was released permanently from Hendrick, and did not return until the final three races of the season, filling in for Ernie Irvan at MB2 Motorsports.

For 1999, Craven signed on to drive the No. 58 Ford Taurus for Scott Barbour's SBIII Motorsports, a brand new team in NASCAR.

Craven returned to the team in 2000 but after failing to qualify for four of the first nine races of the season, the team switched to a part-time schedule.

Following this decision, Craven had four Top 20 finishes but finished 44th in points.

In January the next year, it was announced that Craven would replace Scott Pruett in PPI Motorsports's No. 32 Ford.

He won the pole in the summer race at Michigan International Speedway and in the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway, he held off Dale Jarrett in the closing laps for his first career Winston Cup win.

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.

Craven graduated from Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine.

Craven began racing at the age of 15 at Unity Raceway, winning twice as well as the Rookie of the Year award.

The next year, he won 12 feature events and the track championship.

He did not finish any better than 19th while driving the car and after he failed to qualify for the Coca-Cola 600, he was replaced by Loy Allen Jr.. Several weeks later, he signed up with another new team Midwest Transit Racing, replacing rookie Dan Pardus in the No. 50 and finished the season with them.