Team: PPI Motorsports
Car/sponsor/make: No.32 Tide Pontiac
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| | Craven |
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STATS
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Year
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Rank
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Wins
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Poles
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Top 5
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Best finish
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2002
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15
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0
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2
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3
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3rd, Charlotte
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Career
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1
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6
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14
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1st, Martinsville
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2002 recap
The good: Craven started the year of with five top-10s, two poles and his only three top-fives of the year -- all in the first 13 races of 2002. In that span, he also started in the top-10 for eight races. It was a great start to a season that ended in his best-ever points finish.
Season highlight: The highlight was the Coca-Cola 600. Sure, Craven grabbed a pole in the second race of the year at Rockingham, N.C., and
translated that into a fifth-place finish -- but starting and finishing third in such a high-profile event as the long day-to-night race was a big deal for the No. 32 team.
The bad: Craven was unable to continue that torrid start. Instead, he ran consistently in the high teens or lower 20s, which is why he remained between 13th and 16th in the standings the entire year.
Season lowlight: The year was consistently average, so his lowlight amounted to the one truly bad point in the year -- when he finished 41st at Darlington, S.C., despite starting on the pole. It happened after Craven was involved in a wreck.
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| Ricky Craven was consistent but unspectacular in 2002. |
Key stat: $156,762. That was the biggest single-race payday Craven had all year, and it came for a mere 17th-place effort. But that 17th came at the Daytona 500.
2003 outlook
What needs to be done: Craven needs to adjust to a new manufacturer and maintain the consistency he found for much of last season. The team seems to have hit on some good setups at several tracks, so the game for them will be translating what they've learned the past two season to the Pontiac as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Prediction: Craven has improved over the past two years, and a third year of better finishes could result in the driver's first-ever top-10 finish in the standings.
Your take
Can Craven recapture his momentum or is he still far from fully realizing the expectations everyone had for the 1995 rookie of the year? Here are your thoughts on Craven's prospects for 2003.
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