Racebeat (03/17/03)
by Rich Romer

NASCAR Winston Cup: Ricky Craven won the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 by inches, finishing alongside Kurt Busch after their cars hit repeatedly on the closing straightaway. The margin of victory was two thousandths of a second -- the smallest since NASCAR introduced electronic timing in 1993. Craven earned the second win of his career by charging from fourth with 23 laps to go. He moved up to second place on lap 271 of the 293-lap event when pole-sitter Elliott Sadler bounced off the wall and lost ground. Busch had taken the lead the previous lap after Jeff Gordon banged off the wall while trying to fend off Busch. Busch appeared to have the race won at that point, but a power steering problem that got progressively worse as the race neared its end gave Craven his chance.

Craven's No. 32 Pontiac inched closer on every lap, and he finally pulled alongside Busch's No. 97 Ford twice on lap 291. As they drove into the first turn on the next lap, Craven bumped Busch and nearly sent him into the wall as he took the lead. Busch gathered in his sliding car and bumped past Craven in the second turn, nearly putting Craven in the wall. Busch retained the lead until the final turn of the race when Craven moved to the inside of Busch's car and the two started bouncing off each other and grinding toward the finish. Craven was in front at the end, though. His other victory came at Martinsville in October 2001. Busch, who also lost a close battle with Dale Jarrett last month in Rockingham, said, "It was awesome. That's what it's all about -- racing as hard as you can." He said without the power steering problem it would have been no contest. Craven's race average was 126.214 mph, slowed by seven cautions for 34 laps. Dave Blaney was third, the best finish of his career. He was followed by Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Sadler and series points leader Matt Kenseth.

Defending Winston Cup champion Tony Stewart was 10th and fell from 49 to 57 points behind Kenseth in the standings, with Waltrip another five points back. Craven was criticized by some for returning to racing after missing 12 races in 1998 after a concussion. Both of his victories have come since he returned, both while driving for Cal Wells' PPI Motorsports. Darlington's 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval, the first superspeedway in NASCAR, is considered one of the most treacherous in the sport and is known as the "Track Too Tough to Tame." Sunday was the 100th Winston Cup race here. There was only one serious wreck in the race, with seven cars hitting the wall or each other on lap 23 after Kevin Harvick started a chain reaction when he slid into the outer concrete barrier. The crash took defending race winner Sterling Marlin out of contention and did considerable damage to the cars driven by Harvick, Todd Bodine, Bobby Labonte, Jimmie Johnson and rookies Tony Raines and Jack Sprague. Another of the yellow flags was brought out when Jeff Burton's engine blew, continuing the engine problems experienced by Roush Racing. Two weeks ago in Las Vegas, Martin's engine failed. Last week in Atlanta, it was Martin, Busch, Greg Biffle and a Roush-built engine in Ricky Rudd's car. Busch blew another motor in practice Saturday morning. Earnhardt appeared to have the fastest car during the first half of the race. He twice pulled away to big leads.