Rookie mistake irritates Craven Biffle’s lapped car caused crash

Newburgh’s Ricky Craven gave rookie Greg Biffle an earful as Biffle sat in his car after the Sirius 400 NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway Sunday afternoon.

Craven had to take a provisional spot after attempting to qualify Friday and started 37th, but he was running in the top eight with 29 laps to go when the lapped car of Biffle was pushed up the track by Tony Stewart, hit the outside wall, and slid down into Craven’s Pontiac.

The crash damaged the right front fender on Craven’s Pontiac and made handling difficult, resulting in a 15th- place finish.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever been as mad at the end of a race as I was today [Sunday],” said Craven, who was gunning for a third straight top-10. “We had a legitimate shot at the win, and the opportunity for us to race for the win was taken away by a lapped car.”

“When you’re a lapped car and it’s not your day, move over and let the guys who are running for the win have a chance at it. That’s all I ask. When we have a bad day, I try to show respect to the leaders and not hold them up. I give them plenty of room to race. All I ask is for the same consideration. It’s incredibly frustrating, because we had a car capable of winning this thing,” added Craven on the PPI Motorsports Web site.

After a miserable qualifying effort on Friday, Craven and his PPI Motorsports team worked on the car Saturday and it was second-fastest in happy hour.

Those adjustments and excellent pit stops helped him climb as high as second during the race only to have the incident with Biffle cost him.

“We had a bad day Friday and had to take a provisional, but the guys never lost faith. They came in here with fire in their eyes, and got the Tide Pontiac ready to race. The pit stops today [Sunday] were awesome. I can’t say enough about the hard work everyone put in. This team doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit,'” said Craven, who slipped one spot to 13th in the points standings.

“It’s so difficult to win one of these things,” Craven said. “You try to put yourself in contention for the win every week, and there’s so many ways to lose one of these deals. It’s frustrating enough when a part breaks or you or your team makes a mistake that costs you the win. To have another driver mess up your chances when you feel like you’ve got a car that can win has to be the most frustrating feeling a driver can have.”

Craven and the Tide team will move on to Infineon Raceway in Sears Point, Calif., for the Save Mart 350, the first road course race of the season, on Sunday at 3:30 p.m.