Newburgh’s Ricky Craven recently completed his 11th season as the NASCAR analyst at ESPN. He said he would enjoy expanding his role to include some involvement with Formula One racing, which will leave NBC and return to ESPN next season.
ESPN carried the open-wheel racing series from 1984-1997 but NBC has owned the rights since 2013.
“I’m enthusiastic about ESPN covering all the Formula One races in 2018,” said Craven, a two-time winner on the Monster Energy Series. “I hope to get a crack at it. I would be challenged by it.
“But my primary responsibility is and will be NASCAR,” he added.
Craven continues to enjoy his stint with ESPN, saying it has been rewarding.
He said it was a solid year for the Monster Energy Series.
Martin Truex Jr. won his first championship and Kyle Busch was second, followed by Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski among the four drivers who entered the final race at Homestead-Miami Speedway with a chance to win amidst the playoff system.
Busch (2015), Harvick (2014) and Keselowski (2012) had previously won championships.
This was the first season of stage racing as each race had three different stages. The top 10 finishers in the first two stages received points and the full field earned points at the end of the race. Drivers earned bonus points for winning stages as well as races and that carried through the playoffs.
“It was a good season primarily because of stage racing,” said Craven, a member of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame. “It exceeded most people’s expectations. There was a lot of skepticism but I thought it enhanced the event. It brought a couple new dimensions to our sport.
“In the end, it played to perfection. The guy and the team that garnered the most stage points was rewarded for that,” Craven said of Truex’s 19 stage wins and 74 bonus points, both of which were series highs.
Busch was second in stage wins (14) and bonus points (42).
The 2018 season will be a challenging one for NASCAR.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the winner of the Most Popular Driver Award for 15 consecutive years, and Danica Patrick, the sport’s only female driver, have retired. Patrick intends to officially retire after racing in the Daytona 500 and IndyCar’s Indianapolis 500.
“Dale Jr. is irreplaceable,” Craven said. “A dozen drivers couldn’t fill his void because of his common-man approach. He was a cult figure.”
Craven said Earnhardt Jr. posted a victory in 2001 that was very important for the series.
Earnhardt’s father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., died in a crash during the 2001 Daytona 500, but when the series returned to Daytona International Speedway in July for the Pepsi 400, it was Dale Jr. who took checkered flag.
“It was extremely uncomfortable to return to Daytona that summer after Dale Sr. had died [in February]. But by winning that race, Dale Jr. allowed us to heal,” said Craven, who finished 33rd. “And he went on to carry our sport.
“With him not racing, he won’t sell any more tickets and people aren’t going to buy his shirts,” Craven said. “It’s going to create a headwind and I don’t know how long it is going to take [to recover].”
Craven said Patrick “brought a flavor and a demographic that will be hard to replicate. There are no other females in line to compete at NASCAR’s highest level.”
He said her retirement didn’t surprise him.
“She had been racing long enough so there needed to be some meaningful progress,” Craven said. “She did find some consistency over the second half of the season [9 top-18 finishes over her last 19 races], but her career had stalled out in terms of performance.”
Patrick had seven top-10 finishes in 190 Monster Energy Series races but no top-fives. She never finished higher than 24th in the points and wound up 28th this season.
“I think she tried as hard as a human being could try, and she worked as hard as a human being could work. But I don’t think she had the confidence and the NASCAR racing knowledge to move the ball forward,” Craven said.
Patrick is the only female to lead laps at the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 and owns several other records among women. She is the only woman to win an IndyCar race (2008).
Craven said there is a lot of young talent emerging.
“But I don’t feel, at the present time, that there is a person coming along that we could compare to Dale Jr. or [fellow Monster Energy Series retirees] Jeff Gordon and even Tony Stewart in terms of personality,” Craven said.
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