MBNA America 400 - Ricky Craven Notes

MBNA Family 400 Preview - Ricky Craven- No. 32 Tide Pontiac

2003 Best Finish: 1st- Darlington, S.C. - 3/16/03 2003 Best Start: 6th- North Carolina Speedway- 2/23/03
2003 Stats: 1 Win (Darlington, S.C.- 3/16/03); 3 Top-5 Finishes; 7 Top-10 Finishes; 0 Bud Pole Awards
Current Points Standing: 22nd Winston Cup Career Wins: Two (Darlington 3/16/03; Martinsville, 10/15/01)
Winston Cup Career Pole Positions: 6 (Martinsville, 1996; New Hampshire, 1996 & 1998; Michigan, 2001; Rockingham & Darlington, 2002)

Sylvania 300 Recap: Ricky Craven drove his Tide Pontiac to a 38th-place finish at New Hampshire Int'l. Speedway. An accident during Saturday's first practice session caused the Tide team to go to a backup car, which meant Craven started at the rear of the field. In the race, a carburetor that eventually had to be replaced contributed to several other problems that left Craven nine laps down to the race leaders.

The Chassis: The chassis Ricky Craven will drive at Dover Int'l. Speedway (DIS) is chassis No. 32, the same car Craven drove in his win at Darlington Raceway in March. This chassis has also been driven to top-10 finishes in the last three races at DIS.

Last Race at Dover: The Tide team scored an eighth-place finish in the June 1 NASCAR Winston Cup event at Dover. After working his way into the top-10 midway through the event, Craven picked up two positions in the closing laps to score his third top-10 finish in a row at "The Monster Mile."

Stats: Ricky Craven and his PPI Motorsports (PPIM) team have scored four top-10 finishes in their last five visits to Dover Int'l. Speedway. In those five races, Craven has an average starting position of 13.6, and an average finish of 10.8. Prior to joining PPIM in 2001, Craven's best finish at Dover was a 13th-place result (June, 1997).

Tide Pit Crew "Busts B.P." - The seven PPI Motorsports crewmen who go over the wall to service the No. 32 Tide Pontiac received a very special award prior to the start of the Sylvania 300 last weekend. NBC/TNT announcer Benny Parsons presented the crew with a check for $700, or $100 per crewman. When Parsons was at PPI's shops last week to interview team members for an unrelated piece that was to air during the New Hampshire race broadcast, he was shown a replay of one of the Tide crew's pit stops from the recent race at Richmond International Raceway. The videotape showed the Tide crew performing a four-tire pit stop in 12.9 seconds. Parsons has an ongoing "wager" with all NASCAR Winston Cup teams, in which any crew that completes a four-tire stop in under 13 seconds receives $100 per man. What did Parsons say about forking over the cash? "I guess I'll have to keep a closer eye on these guys."

PPI Working on Installing Rood Hatches for 2004 -PPI Motorsports team owner Cal Wells says his team is beginning work on roof hatches that they plan to install on all the team's cars for the 2004 season.

Cal Wells, III - "We definitely plan on running (the roof hatch). The guys are working on a prototype that will be installed on a new chassis they're building right now. We actually had a meeting earlier this week to discuss that very thing. Our goal is to have it ready to go in time for Daytona next year. I know some guys are planning on running the hatch at Talladega next week, but we're just not that far along at this point."

Hey, isn't that...? - Race fans driving to Dover International Speedway may pass a familiar face on the highways. Ricky Craven, who stayed in the New England area following last weekend's race, is piloting his own motor coach to the Dover event. Craven's regular coach driver, David Shelley, is busy handling other pressing business, so to get his coach to the track in time, Craven gladly volunteered to take matters (and driving duties) into his own hands.

Ricky Craven, on coming back to Dover- "Dover is a track I've enjoyed ever since I started coming here. Now that we've put together a run of top-10 finishes, I like it even more. There's not many places we race that I don't enjoy, but Dover's definitely one of my favorites. It's a difficult track to get a handle on, but we seem to have found a car that works here."

Similar Setup -Of all the tracks the Winston Cup Series visits twice a year, Dover Int'l. Speedway is one where the setup a race team will use doesn't change as much from one event to the next.

Crew Chief Scott Miller, on setups at Dover - "The information we gathered in the June race is still pretty applicable, much more so than it would be at a track like Charlotte, for example. The different weather conditions don't affect the concrete surface nearly as much as it does asphalt. We'll start practice with a setup that's fairly close to what we ran here earlier in the year, and tweak it from there. It's nice to have a base to work from."

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