Craven enjoys radio role; not ruling out a return to racing

Newburgh’s Ricky Craven may not be behind the wheel of a Nextel Cup or Busch car or a NASCAR Craftsman truck, but he is still involved in the sport.

Craven and John Kernan co-host a weekly call-in show on the Sirius Satellite Radio and Craven also does a weekly show on Yahoosports.com. He is also doing some video streaming on Yahoosports.com.

The radio show is titled “In the Driver’s Seat” and Craven is one of several drivers who sits in on a weekly basis. It runs from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

“I like connecting with the fans,” said Craven. “At first, I thought most of the calls would come from the northeast. But we get a lot of calls from everywhere. We get a lot of calls from Canada.”

As a NASCAR analyst on Yahoosports.com, he’ll do things like write a recap of the most recent Nextel Cup race and look ahead to the upcoming race.

“Yahoo is incredible. Video streaming has become a big deal,” said Craven.

“I’m enjoying these new opportunities because they’re challenging and it’s nice to be challenged,” he added.

He also intends to explore potential television analyst opportunities.

That’s not to say he is retiring from racing.

“To be clear, I absolutely miss competing. That does bother me,” stated Craven emphatically. “I still have an interest in racing. I could still enjoy racing. I could race a partial schedule. But I don’t see myself racing full time again.”

He said he doesn’t have any potential racing gigs on tap at this time.

Craven has 278 Nextel Cup races to his credit with two wins, 17 top-fives and 41 top-10s. He has won six poles and career earnings of $15,109,281. In 142 Busch races, he posted four wins, 27 top-fives and 57 top-10s with seven poles and $1,067,689. He had a win, four top-fives and nine top-10s in 26 Truck series races and earned $401,218.

His last full season of racing was in the Truck series for Roush Racing in 2005. He finished 14th in points and won a race at Martinsville that made him the 15th driver in history to take the checkered flag in the Nextel Cup, Busch and Truck series.

Craven raced just twice last year, finishing 39th in a Busch race for the FitzBradshaw Racing Team at Martinsville and coming home 32nd in the TD Banknorth 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway.

He took the year off to spend time with his family and said “taking the year off to reflect was perfect.”

Craven, who owns a commercial land leasing firm in Kannapolis, N.C., is a Red Sox fan and was intrigued by the merger between Roush Racing and the Fenway Sports Group, which is a subsidiary of New England Sports Ventures which owns the Red Sox and 80 percent of the New England Sports Network.

“They had talked about it for years. That can certainly bring a new dimension to the sport. They are two very successful identities in separate sports,” said the 40-year-old Craven. “It will certainly help Roush Racing in terms of resources and depth. It will be fun to watch.

“It will be interesting to see the ripple effect. It will be intriguing to speculate the effect it will have on other potential mergers,” added Craven. “I don’t expect it to be an isolated situation. There are too many other powerful people and organizations interested in NASCAR.”