Ricky Craven’s second consecutive Winston Cup top-10 finish had more highs than lows for the Newburgh driver, who led the All-American Heroes 400 at Dover Downs International Raceway on two occasions Sunday afternoon.

Craven, who wound up ninth, remained in 16th place in the Winston Cup points standings, but picked up some valuable ground on the two men ahead of him, Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Craven, who is hoping to finish in the top 15 in points with his PPI Motorsports team, is only 10 points behind Waltrip and 21 behind Earnhardt Jr.

He now has seven top-10 finishes in 28 NASCAR races this season which matches last year’s previous career best. There are eight races remaining.

On Sunday, Craven started seventh and led laps 145-148 and 162-203 over the 400-lap race.

According to the PPI-Motorsports Web site, Craven’s No. 32 Tide Ford Taurus was loose in the early stages of the race but that was eventually rectified and he had the fastest car in the field from lap 142 to 203.

However, just after the halfway stage, Craven told crew chief Mike Beam that the car had become tight and he couldn’t hold it on the bottom of the racetrack any more.

A green flag pit stop on lap 240 failed to cure the problem so Craven ran between eighth and ninth for the rest of the race.

Craven radioed to Beam with two laps remaining that the motor was giving up and race winner Jimmie Johnson put him a lap down one lap later.

Craven’s car made it to the finish line for the ninth-place showing.

“It was good,” said Craven after the race. “It’s tough, though, when you run that good and then it got away from us at the end. And then we blew up at the end. Oh, well. When you consider all those things, it was a pretty darned good day.”

The 1995 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year now has 12 top 15 and 19 top-20 finishes in 2002. His average starting position is 15.5 and average finish is 18.1.

The next race is Sunday’s Protection One 400 at Kansas Speedway on Sunday afternoon.