Craven’s Tide team revamped PPI-Motorsports seeks improvement

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If you could pick a song that would best sum up the outlook for Newburgh’s Ricky Craven and his Tide No. 32 Chevy in the NASCAR Nextel Cup series, it would be David Bowie’s “Changes.”

Heading into the season-opening Daytona 500 in eight days, there is a lengthy list of personnel changes and the PPI-Motorsports’ second-year engine program will be supplying motors for Chevys instead of Pontiacs.

Pontiac pulled out of NASCAR after last season.

There are also changes within the series itself as Nextel takes over for Winston as the primary sponsor and a new points system will be introduced, one that emulates a playoff-type system used in other sports.

Only the top 10 drivers in the points standings and any driver within 400 points of the leader after the first 26 races will be eligible to contend for the title over the final 10 races.

The championship contenders will have their points restructured with each driver having a five-point lead on the next closest pursuer. So the leader will begin the final 10 races with a five-point lead on the second-place driver, a 10-point lead on the third-place driver and so on.

What this means for Craven and PPI Motorsports Team owner Cal Wells III is that if they are to contend for a points championship, things will have to fall into place soon.

“It’s critical that we don’t waste any time,” said Craven. “It’s critical that we run well early in the season. Clearly, our goal is to be in the top 10 after 26 races.

“I think it’s a realistic goal. We’re all up for the challenge. We have some hurdles we’ll need to clear. But everybody is excited about this year. We expect to get back to the form of 2002 when we finished 15th. And then we’ll need to make a push to get in the top 10,” said Craven.

Craven followed his best ever points finish in 2002 with a promising start last season as he registered his second career Winston Cup win [at the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington (S.C.)] and was sitting seventh in points after 10 races.

But 10 Did Not Finishes over the last 26 races and an average starting position of 28th resulted in a dismal 27th-place finish in the final points standings.

It was Craven’s worst finish in the six seasons in which he has run at least 30 races.

He hadn’t had a DNF over the first 10 races last season and he had only four during the entire 2002 season.

“We obviously can’t continue to do that,” said Wells. “We have to finish every race. That’ll be the key. If we can get the car home; get back to the DNF ratio we had in 2002 and run slightly better than we did in 2002, we can get in the top 10.”

“We can’t afford to have the DNFs we had at the end of last season,” concurred Craven.

Four of those DNFs were the direct result of engine failures and Wells pointed out that several others were caused by mechanical problems that left Craven with a sub-standard car.

“Just a couple of the DNFs were caused by ‘Oh My Gosh’ accidents. The rest were self-induced,” said Wells.

So Wells went about rectifying the problem.

Among the several personnel changes, Wells brought in Dave Charpentier to replace Scott Miller as the crew chief after he had served as Dale Earnhardt Inc.’s engineer manager.

And Mike Beam, Craven’s former PPI Motorsports crew chief, was appointed to the newly-created position of director of the competition department.

“Both bring something to the table,” said Craven. “Mike brings stability and a lot of experience. Mike is a good friend. We raced together in 2001 and 2002 and those were very productive seasons for me. Dave brings some new enthusiasm and a lot of technical sport.

“Each will impact the team [in a positive way],” Craven added.

“It’s wonderful to have them,” said Wells. “Mike has a great relationship with Ricky and Dave is very sharp. I’m really excited about it.

“We have made a lot of proactive changes. Last year, we made a lot of reactive changes,” explained Wells.

Near the end of the 2002 season, Beam decided to step down as crew chief to limit his travel in order to spend more time with his family.

He was replaced by race engineer Roy McAuley for the final four races.

McAuley was slated to be the crew chief last season but that fell through.

The whole course of events caught Wells by surprise and he eventually settled on Miller.

“It’s like when you lose a player unexpectedly at the last moment. The players you want [to replace him] may not be available, so you have to settle for somebody else. This is no disrespect to Scott. It was a big jump for him and I didn’t have the right people in place to support him properly,” said Wells.

There are several new people working on the engine program, also.

Craven said the engine program has “proven it can win a race” but added that with all of the personnel changes, he realizes he is going to have to be patient.

“We will match a lot of teams coming out of the gate but to expect to have the strongest engines right away would be unreasonable,” said Craven.

“I think we’ve made some very good improvements to the Tide racing team,” said Craven. “I don’t know exactly where we’re going to be coming out of the gates. But as the season goes on, we’ll evolve and continue to get better and better.”

One of the positives last season was the performance of the pit crew and, with the exception of a new rear-tire-changer, they will return intact.

“They performed very, very well,” said Wells.

Craven pointed out that familiarity enhances performance and the vast majority of his pit crew has been together with him for three years leading into this season.

Wells and Craven are also optimistic about the change to Chevys.

“We’re excited about the potential,” said Wells.

“I believe it’s going to pay dividends,” said Craven. “We’ll be part of a bigger network. We’ll be among the Hendricks’, the Gibbs’ and the DEI stable. That should come with some support. We’ll be able to get a reference or have someone to dialogue with about the car.”

Craven was the only Pontiac driver to win a race last season and the resources weren’t nearly as bountiful as they are with Chevy. Chevy drivers won 19 races.

However, Wells wasn’t able to land a second primary sponsor in order to put together another team so they will continue to be handicapped by being a single-car team again.

Other Chevy teams probably aren’t going to go out of their way to help Wells and Craven.

But at least there will be many more options.

The 37-year-old Craven, who was once sidelined for more than four months due to post-concussion syndrome and an inner ear problem, said he has never been healthier.

“I went to Baltimore for my annual physical on Tuesday and got excellent grades. I trimmed off 10 pounds from this time last year. This is the best I’ve ever felt going into the season,” said Craven, the 1995 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year.

Craven hasn’t lost any enthusiasm for the sport he has been involved in for more than 20 years.

“This is a wonderful time to be in this sport. We’ve gone from Winston to Nextel and there’s a lot of excitement surrounding the series,” said Craven.

For a single-car team to crack the top 10 over a 26-race stretch, that is an extremely ambitious goal, especially with all the personnel changes including a first-year crew chief.

The change to Chevy will help because Craven had been a Chevy man virtually his entire career until switching to Ford and Pontiac in recent years.

Their eventual success and failure will depend on the ability of the engine program to supply him with a car that can consistently qualify in the top 20 and can be competitive for the entire duration of races.

Craven’s average starting position was 10 spots worse last year than in 2002 and he had six more DNFs.

The result: a 12-position drop in the final standings.

Craven is a good racer. He has the right blend of aggressiveness and patience necessary to get the most out of his car.

But, like any other driver, he needs a competitive car.