Craven’s battle to drive again starts today> Goal is to return on July 1

He vows he will not step into a Winston Cup car again until he is completely healthy.

Newburgh’s Ricky Craven, who is in his fourth season racing on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit, will begin therapy at the University of North Carolina Medical Center on Wednesday for the post concussion syndrome that was diagnosed last week.

The 1995 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year said he is hoping the doctors can pinpoint exactly where the problem is and treat it accordingly. It could be in the inner ear or on the brain.

“My goal is to be back in the race car on July 1,” said Craven whose primary symptom is a balance problem. “When I get back into the car, I want to be in the same form that got me a third at the Daytona 500 and helped me win poles at Martinsville and New Hampshire last year. I won’t get into a race car unless I’m 100 percent.

“I don’t want to hold back the Budweiser team,” added Craven. ” I want to win Winston Cup races and I can’t do that in the condition I was in the past few weeks.”

He said he feels fine to perform daily functions “but the severe vibrations you get in a race car make it very difficult for me to focus.”

Craven has had two major accidents during his career that have sidelined him: one at Talladega Superspeedway two years ago and the other during a practice run at the Texas Motor Speedway last year. But Craven said that it was during a minor accident when he hit the wall in Phoenix’s Dura Lube 500 in the next-to-last Winston Cup race last season that “I hurt myself worse than I realized.”

He didn’t make a big fuss about it because there was only one race left: the NAPA 500 in Hampton, Ga.

Craven noticed that he didn’t bounce back “as quickly as I had from other accidents” following the Phoenix incident and didn’t run well in Hampton, finishing 39th. He said he had suffered “another concussion” at Phoenix.

He said he was “quite devastated” six days ago when the doctors adamantly told him he couldn’t race for three months.

“They didn’t hold anything back. They made it clear to me I would be out for a minimum of three months and it could be six months,” said the 31-year-old Craven. “I can’t continue to take these kinds of beatings. They compound the problem. From what I’ve gotten from the doctors, one concussion is bad; two is twice as bad and three is three times as bad.

“The only for-sure cure is time [away from it],” said Craven. “I need to be safe and not do anything to compound it. The problems I’ve had the last 10-14 days have resulted from me hitting my head too many times.”

He doesn’t anticipate any tentativeness when he returns to the track.

“I can’t worry about the wrecks. They are an element of the sport. You can’t let it interfere with you and I won’t,” said Craven, who will be fortified by his burning desire to take a ride to victory lane.

“Winning races are still that important to me. I still feel I can be very effective in a race car,” said Craven, who finished a career-high 19th in the points race last year.

Craven said his wife, K.K., has handled the situation “pretty well. She has recognized the frustration on my face and my disappointment the last couple of weeks. She’s obviously concerned but she hasn’t mentioned the R-word . It’s not part of the equation. The doctors have maintained that this can be corrected.”

Craven hopes to spend a little time in his native state during his period of inactivity but added that he will be pretty much confined to North Carolina because that is where his rehabilitation will take place.