Craven loses ride> Allen replaces Maine native

Newburgh native Ricky Craven’s auto racing career took another unscheduled trip into the pits Wednesday with news that he has been released as driver of the fledgling SBIII Motorsports team.

Team owner Scott Barbour has replaced Craven with 33-year-old Loy Allen Jr., who gained some notoriety in 1994 when he became the first rookie to earn the pole in the Daytona 500.

Allen was seriously injured in 1996 and will be making a return to full-time Winston Cup driving. Allen is aware of the parallels between his career and that of Craven, who has also battled injury.

“Drivers go through, in this sport, quite a bit, and I think it’s something that you just stay in the sport and try to fight back at it, and just give it everything you can every time you go to the racetrack, which [Craven] has done and a lot of the drivers have to do,” Allen said Thursday on Winston Cup Today, a syndicated radio program.

Neither Craven nor officials at SBIII Motorsports could not be reached for comment.

In 12 races in 1999, Craven had an average starting position of 31st and an average finish of 32nd. Craven was 41st in Winston Cup points and had earned $448,299.

In 116 career starts Craven had won no races, finished in the top 5 seven times and in the top 10 on 17 occasions.

Craven’s NASCAR Winston Cup career showed signs of great promise early, as he was named the circuit’s Raybestos Rookie of the Year in 1995.

But over the past four years Craven has driven for three different teams.

Craven began with the Larry Hedrick Motorsports team and became a part-owner while driving the No. 41 Kodiak car. But after the 1996 season Craven jumped at the chance to move up the Winston Cup ladder and join the competitive Hendrick Motorsports Team that included drivers Jeff Gordon and Terry Labonte.

Craven’s tenure as driver of the No. 25 Budweiser car began with success, as he took third in a 1-2-3 Hendrick sweep at the Daytona 500 in 1997.

Later in the season, though, Craven suffered a major setback when he crashed during practice at Texas Motorspeedway, breaking his right shoulder blade and two ribs. Still, Craven finished in 19th place in the end-of-year points standings in ’97.

Craven’s career took a major detour the following year, as he missed four months while dealing with the effects of post-concussion syndrome.

A recent Sports Illustrated story on Craven said some racing insiders thought the driver came back too quickly from the injury.

“Ricky had always been such an energetic guy before the crashes,” an unnamed former-ESPN employee was quoted as saying in the SI story. “We did an interview with him when he returned and, in one spot, in the middle of a sentence, he paused for nine seconds. We were worried about him.”

Craven finished the season with finishes of 30th, 37th and 25th.