Ricky Craven shows he has the right stuff

Ricky Craven was walking slowly toward his Chevy Monte Carlo moments before the thatlook.com 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway on Sunday afternoon. The Newburgh native was soaking up the moment – approximately 100,000 were on hand – before taking a slight detour to Jeff Gordon’s DuPont No. 24 Chevy.

Craven reached in and shook hands with Gordon, obviously wishing his former Hendrick Motorsports teammate good luck for the race.

Of all the NASCAR drivers, Gordon may be the least-liked among the fans. He is loudly booed during pre-race introductions. He has won 51 races in his eight seasons to date and that hasn’t set well with the multitudes, who grew up cheering for Earnhardt, Wallace, Elliott and Martin.

But loyalty and friendship mean something to Craven these days so he extended his hand.

Those traits can be hard to find in the greedy world of professional sports these days, a world that sees multi-millionaires charge 8-year-olds $10, $20, $30 just to autograph a baseball card.

Loyalty has also prevented Craven from leaving the underfunded, undermanned Midwest Transit Co. team which doesn’t have a primary sponsor and can only race specific events due to a lack of resources.

But Craven fully understands his situation and quietly tries to make the best of it. He is grateful to owner Hal Hicks for giving him the opportunity to drive last season after his Hollywood Video-sponsored ride with fledgling SBIII Motorsports turned into a nightmare. He was released after the 13th race of the season and he was driving for Hicks four races later.

He has passed up opportunities with other teams to remain with Hicks.

He looked like anything but a driver of an underfinanced team at Loudon on Sunday.

He impressively led for 62 of the first 65 laps. He pulled away from the field until worn tires slowed him down and required him to pit.

He eventually dropped back as far as 31st but he aggressively maneuvered through the field into 17th place. He should have finished much higher based on his car and his hard-charging, well-calculated driving.

But Mother Nature intervened and resulted in a rain-shortened race which kept him from passing cars that needed to make one more pit stop.

He didn’t need one.

Without the rain, he almost certainly would have finished in the top 10.

Skeptics will say Craven hasn’t been the same since the violent accidents at Talladega in 1996 and Texas Motor Speedway two years later.

He missed four months with post-concussion syndrome and an inner ear problem and, shortly after his return, he was released from his ride with Hendrick Motorsports.

The skeptics are wrong.

Dead wrong.

Craven will win a Winston Cup race. He may even win a handful.

He is quietly confident that he will win at least one.

He maintains that he is a better driver today than he was in 1997 when he finished a career-best 19th in points.

Through his ordeals over the past two seasons, he has been forced to compensate with inferior cars and undermanned teams.

That has made him a more adaptable driver.

He is as aggressive as ever and simply needs to find a better situation: whether it be with a new team or through a significant financial upgrading from Midwest Transit Co. or a primary sponsor.

Larry Mahoney is a NEWS sportswriter.