PHOTO: Jamie Squier, Allsport
SEASON IN REVIEW
Newburgh, Maine driver Ricky Craven picked up his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 1999, scoring four last-place finishes in twenty-four starts during a thirty-four-race season. Craven became the first Cup driver to win the LASTCAR title without a tiebreaker since John McFadden in 1992.
Craven was competing in his sixth season on the Cup Series tour, which to say the least had been an up-and-down affair. Craven made his Cup Series debut on October 20, 1991 driving the #20 SpeeDee Oil Change Oldsmobile for owner Dick Moroso, father of the late Rob Moroso, at Rockingham, North Carolina. Following back-to-back runner-up finishes in the 1993 and 1994 NASCAR Busch Grand National Series standings, Craven moved to the Cup Series in 1995, winning Rookie of the Year in his first of two seasons for owner Larry Hedrick in the #41 Kodiak Chevrolet.
In 1997, Craven moved up to Hendrick Motorsports, replacing longtime member Ken Schrader as driver of the #25 Budweiser Chevrolet. Craven’s season began February 16, 1997 with a sterling 3rd-place finish in the Daytona 500 behind teammates Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte, equaling what was his best career finish from two races in 1996.
Unfortunately, Craven missed two races in early April following a grinding practice crash at the new Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. Craven returned to score five more top-ten finishes in 1997 and was set to run the #50 Budweiser Chevrolet in 1998, but the side-effects of his Texas crash manifested in a diagnosis for post-concussion syndrome, causing him to miss much of the season. Craven returned to the track in time to race at his home track in Loudon, New Hampshire, where he stunned observers by scoring the pole and leading thirteen laps before he came home 29th. Despite this, Craven and Hendrick separated two races later, and after a brief stint in the #36 Skittles Pontiac driving in relief of Ernie Irvan, Craven was out of a ride.
In 1999, Craven was hired by the start-up team SBIII Motorsports owned by Scott Barbour, and he made the Daytona 500 field in his #58 Hollywood Video Ford, finishing 26th. However, the ensuing season would see him score the first of four lat-place finishes with the team seven races later in Martinsville, Virginia on April 18, when handling woes stopped him just 99 laps from the finish. Four races and a DNQ at Concord, North Carolina later, Craven was out of a ride once more, only to be picked-up by another new team, the #50 Midwest Transit Chevrolet team owned by Hal Hicks and Mike Witters.
Hicks and Witters had made just one Cup Series start with Dan Pardus in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona Beach, Florida on October 17, 1998, a year with six DNQs. Craven succeeded in getting the team into its second-straight running of the Pepsi 400 on July 3, 1999, but ended up finishing last, falling out after just 34 laps due to steering woes. The other two finishes for Craven and team came at Loudon, New Hampshire on September 19, when a crash took them out after 111 laps, and at Concord, North Carolina on October 11, where handling problems again were the cause of an exit after 143 laps.
Craven stayed with Hicks and Witters in 2000, making just sixteen more starts that season and eight DNQs, before moving to the #32 Tide Ford for PPI Motorsports in 2001, a team owned by open-wheel car owner Cal Wells. Wells had struggled badly in 2000 as well, enduring a disastrous rookie season for Scott Pruett that left them 37th in the point standings. In 2001, Craven turned the team around in a big way, finishing 21st in points with four Top Fives, seven Top Tens, a pole at Brooklyn, Michigan, and - most importantly - an emotional first career victory at Martinsville, Virginia on October 15, 2001 following a last-lap slugfest with Dale Jarrett.
Craven stayed with Wells for his final four Cup Series seasons with the sole exception of his 278th and final start at Talladega, Alabama on October 3, 2004, when he drove a #11 Old Spice Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs. In that time, Wells’ team moved from Ford to Pontiac in 2003, allowing Craven to score the manufacturer’s final Cup Series victory in dramatic style at Darlington, South Carolina. It was at that track during the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 on March 16, 2003 that Craven won another hard-fought victory over Kurt Busch, grinding out the closest finish in NASCAR history - just two-thousandths of a second.
Craven stepped away from NASCAR in 2006 and became an analyst for ESPN.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
On July 11, the same day that Kenny Wallace scored his first runner-up finish in the Jiffy Lube 300 in Loudon, New Hampshire, a 24-year-old Dale Earnhardt, Jr. scored the first last-place finish in his second Cup Series start. Earnhardt, Jr.’s #8 Budweiser Chevrolet finished 16th in his first start in the Coca-Cola 600 at Concord, North Carolina, but he wound up 43rd in Loudon when his ignition failed after 44 laps. The race was the second of a five-race stretch for the defending NASCAR Busch Series Champion, and he would run his first full season in 2000.
The year 1999 also saw Pennzoil 400 presented by K-Mart, the inaugural event at Homestead, Florida on November 14, scene of David Green’s first and only Cup Series pole position. Finishing last that day was Darrell Waltrip, the fourteenth last-place finish of his career. Waltrip’s #66 Big K-Mart / Route 66 Ford fell out with handling woes after 85 laps. It was the second-straight time Waltrip finished last in an inaugural Cup race, following his last-place showing in Fort Worth, Texas in 1997. The following 2000 season would be his last on the Cup Series tour.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Ricky Craven (4)
2nd) John Andretti, Brett Bodine, Ward Burton, Kyle Petty, Darrell Waltrip (2)
3rd) Johnny Benson, Jr., Todd Bodine, Derrike Cope, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Butch Gilliland, Jeff Gordon, David Green, Andy Hillenburg, Ernie Irvan, Kenny Irwin, Jr., Terry Labonte, Chad Little, Jerry Nadeau, Robert Pressley, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Jimmy Spencer, Dick Trickle, Kenny Wallace, Rusty Wallace (1)
