I may not know a head gasket from a head mechanic, but this week’s NASCAR news drove me into a tizzy.

Ricky Craven signed with a new team!

I know. On the surface, it ranks down there with the arrival of mud season on the low end of Maine’s amazing events continuum.

The season’s looming. Ricky’s got a new ride. Ho hum. See you at the races. Hand me that wrench.

Not that I’m badmouthing Ricky, mind you. The last time I talked to him, he even called me “Buddy.” And if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: You don’t dump on your buddies. (Of course, I heard him call 500 people, men and women included, “Buddy” at one of his autograph signings a couple years back, but what can I say? Ricky’s just got a lot of buddies).

Things change quickly in the car-racing business. I know that. Like, one minute you’re comfortably tucked in the middle of a 20-car draft at Talladega or Daytona, snug as a bug in a 200 mph rug, and the next thing you know, you’re making like the Agony-of-Defeat guy, except you’re going 200 miles an hour, UPSIDE DOWN, and backwards. And upsidedownandbackwards and … and … you get the point.

But this is different. This time, Ricky’s got a new team that’s gonna race every single week!

It gets even better.

NASCAR, after all, isn’t all about racing. It’s also about the sponsors. It’s about merchandise!

And this time, Ricky has hooked up with a winner.

Not since Craven signed with the Budweiser-sponsored Hendrick team have so many Mainers felt so much automatic kinship with their native driver.

And that includes me. You see, I’ve always tried to help Ricky out, but he’s made it tough.

I never could develop a taste for Kodiak (I was a Skoal man, up until the day my lower lip informed me that it was fixing to fall into my lap, and planned on taking all my teeth with it). And no matter how hard I tried, I never found a box of SBIII in my grocery store.

But this time, he’s a Tide guy. You know what? Me, too!

As a matter of fact, I was so happy Craven had signed with the Tide boys, I rushed home and threw a load of underwear in the wash, and I hadn’t even run out of clean drawers yet! Believe that?

This is just what Ricky needed.

Take out the highest highs, like the third place at Daytona in ’97, and the lowest lows, like the octuple back-handspring with 121/2 twists his car pulled on him at Talladega in ’96, and Craven’s Winston Cup career can nearly be summed up in six words (They sound especially ominous when you say them in your best NASCAR announcer-guy voice:

“Annnnnnnnd … Craven heads behind the wall.”

Which brings me to another reason Craven’s move makes perfect sense: His car is purty darned pretty … if guys are allowed to notice things like that. Picture a Tide box. Then put it on wheels. Then paint a raked-back No. 32 on it. It’s cooooool.

For the first time since he drove that electric green Kodiak car, we’ll be able to watch that big restrictor-plate stew flash by on our TV screen and say, “Hey! There goes Ricky! He just got passed by four red cars and six blue ones! But, man, doesn’t his car look great!”

OK. Maybe that’s not entirely fair. Call me mean. Then I want you to say (with a straight face) that you haven’t shared a Craven joke of your own with a few of your buddies over a few Budweisers. Or Kodiaks. Or whatever sponsor was paying for the paint job that week.

But now, things will be different. Maybe he’ll win. Maybe he won’t. Either way, Ricky’s got a new, improved team, one that’s guaranteed to make your whites whiter, your … sorry … that’s the sponsor talking again.

Gentlemen, start your laundry.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter.