The words were few, but the somber, devastated tone of his voice spoke volumes.

Newburgh Winston Cup driver Ricky Craven’s debut in his No. 32 Tide-sponsored Ford Taurus, a 23rd-place finish at the Daytona 500 on Sunday, was the furthest thing from his mind.

The death of racing legend Dale Earnhardt on the race’s last lap hit hard.

“It is going to be extremely difficult for all of us to recover from this,” said Craven. “It’s going to be a challenge.

“There is still a sense of disbelief for K [Craven’s wife, K.K.] and I,” added Craven. “He was such an ambassador for the sport.”

Craven had known Earnhardt for years and said he saw him frequently away from the track.

“When I’m home, I like to drop my daughter [Riley] off at school [in Concord, N.C.]. It’s about a quarter of a mile from our home. And Dale would drop his daughter off at the same school,” said Craven.

The Earnhardt accident will raise safety questions again in NASCAR. Drivers Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin were killed when they hit the wall at New Hampshire International Speedway during practice runs last year.

Earnhardt’s accident involved his getting loose on the last lap, fishtailing and nudging Ken Schrader’s Pontiac as both cars continued up the track at more than 180 mph before hitting the retaining wall.

Craven said he was too upset to discuss safety issues at this time.

Craven and his PPI Motorsports teammate, Andy Houston, were wearing the HANS – Head And Neck Support – device designed to keep a driver’s head in place during an accident.

Earnhardt was not wearing one.

Dr. Robert Hubbard, a professor of biomedical design research and the inventor of the HANS device, told media personnel at a recent seminar that both Irwin and Petty would have survived their crashes a year ago had they been wearing a HANS device.

Craven and Houston also have six-point safety harnesses; foam bead seat liners; pedal-activated throttle safety switches and cable-activated throttles.

Sticking throttles were partly to blame for the Petty and Irwin accidents.

Craven is certainly no stranger to accident-induced head trauma. In fact, it has had a dramatic impact on his career.

Accidents at Talladega Superspeedway and Texas Motor Speedway left him sidelined for four months with post-concussion syndrome and inner ear problems.

He returned to race for the Hendrick Motorsports team in 1997 but was fired soon afterward.

He drove for two new teams, SBIII Motorsports and Midwest Transit Co., but he was released by SBIII. He decided to leave Midwest Transit when car owner Hal Hicks couldn’t find a primary sponsor and guarantee that Craven would run a full NASCAR schedule this year.

Craven had run in just 16 of the 34 Winston Cup races a year ago because Midwest Transit was underfunded and understaffed.

But PPI owner Cal Wells released Scott Pruett and hired Craven for this season.

Craven had qualified 18th for the Daytona 500 and had been running in the top 15 for most of the race until he heard a loud pop after a green flag pit stop on lap 160 Sunday.

It was a broken piston gear and damaged drive shaft.

The crew hustled to fix the problem, and Craven went back out in 39th place with 25 laps remaining.

A spectacular 18-car crash on lap 175 of the 200-lap race enabled Craven to make up a lot of laps on the cars that couldn’t continue, resulting in his 23rd-place finish.