LOUDON, N.H. – Winston Cup points leader Sterling Marlin probably won’t be receiving a Christmas card from Newburgh’s Ricky Craven this year.

Craven, who has struggled in his Winston Cup races at the New Hampshire International Speedway, appeared to be headed for a respectable finish when Marlin spun him with 49 laps remaining in the New England 300 Sunday.

Craven saved the car, which did a 360-degree spin in turn four, but he got shuffled back to 34th place.

He did manage to pass nine cars over the race’s final 20 laps to finish 21st on his favorite track.

“Sterling ran right over me. He said he didn’t mean to but you know what? It doesn’t matter. We lost all of our track position. There was no need of that. He’s leading the points but he wasn’t driving like a champion,” said an irritated Craven.

Craven qualified ninth and started eighth when fourth-place qualifier Bobby Labonte wrecked his car in practice and had to race his back-up car. That forced him to start in the back.

Craven ran in the top 10 for approximately two-thirds of the race. He was eighth at the 100-lap mark and seventh after 200 laps.

He was running seventh when the 11th of 14 cautions in the race occurred on lap 233 due to debris on the track.

Several teams took on two new tires during the pit stop but Craven took on four and came out of the pits in 26th place.

Would he have been better off taking two tires and maintaining track position?

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask [crew chief] Mike Beam. I just try to drive the heck out of the car. I enjoy what I’m doing. I’m having a great time with the team. I can’t second-guess any of that,” said Craven.

Soon after he came out of the pits, he passed a couple of cars and was on the move when Ricky Rudd got loose and wobbled in the outside groove alongside Craven. Marlin then bumped Craven from behind and spun him.

“We weren’t going to win the race because we had lost track position,” said Craven. “But I felt we still had a shot at a top 10. That eliminated it.”

Craven said the car was “good” throughout the race.

“We absolutely had a top 10 car. We were top five early on. We weren’t as good as the 2 [Rusty Wallace] and the 20 [Tony Stewart] but they didn’t end up winning the race because they lost track position,” said Craven. “It was a game of track position today. We had a good shot to finish in the top five and if we had gotten track position, we could have won. We had as good a chance as 10-15 other cars.”

Stewart hit the wall on lap 123 and finished 39th. Wallace wound up fourth after battling back from a cut tire.

Ward Burton won the race with Jeff Green and Dale Jarrett completing the top three on the humid afternoon in front of 101,000 fans.

Craven said the fact he improved his finish by 13 spots over the final 40 laps was “a little bit of consolation.

“But that’s not what we’re after. That’s not what we’re looking for,” said Craven, whose average finish in his previous 11 Winston Cup races at NHIS was 27th.

He finished 38th twice at NHIS last year.

His 21st-place finish means he has finished 21st or better in eight of his last nine races although he has gone six races without a top 10 after a string of three straight top 10s.

The 36-year-old Craven entered the race in 13th place in the Winston Cup points and maintained his position although he is now tied with Jeff Burton, who finished 12th in the race.

They are nine points ahead of 15th-place Michael Waltrip, who wound up 20th in the New England 300.

Burton and Craven trail 12th-place Ryan Newman by 61 points.

The Winston Cup series heads to Pocono Raceway (Pa.) for the Pennsylvania 500 next Sunday.