Year In Review: PPI Motorsports

If nothing else, Ricky Craven produced the most exhilarating finish in the 2003 Winston Cup season, and depending who you ask, one of the best ever.

Though PPI Motorsports finished just 27th in the overall championship standings, Craven's epic last-lap duel with Kurt Busch in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway will forever be the signature moment of the 2003 campaign.

After playing cat-and-mouse for several laps, the duo locked doors exiting Turn 4 and beat, banged, pushed and shoved one another all the way down the front straightaway and across the start/finish line to post the closest margin of victory in Winston Cup history.

When the dust cleared, Craven had beaten Busch by a miniscule two-thousandths of a second.

PPI MOTORSPORTS  •  PPI team page  •  Ricky Craven's driver page  •  2003 Stats  •  Race recap: Carolina Dodge Dealers 400  •  Craven to remain with Wells through 2006  •  For Craven, home is where the race is  •  Superstore: Craven gear

"This is exactly what you dream of," Craven said following the March 17th race. "It will probably never happen again. This was the perfect finish at the perfect track."

Aside from that, there wasn't much to write home about for PPI. There were top-five finishes at Rockingham and Talladega -- both within the season's first eight races -- and the season produced eight top-10s overall.

Following the win at Darlington, Craven was ranked a season-high fifth, and as late as the season's 10th race, at California Speedway, was seventh.

From there, Craven steadily declined. Back to back DNFs at Richmond and Charlotte dropped him to 15th, and after rebounding to 12th, a season-worst 43rd-place finish at Daytona dropped him to 17th.

A blown engine at Pocono dropped him to 19th, and a month later a wreck at Michigan forced him outside the top 20 for the first time all year. Back-to-back 38th- and 40th-place finishes at New Hampshire and Dover, respectively, dropped him to 22nd, then to 24th overall.

	Craven finished the year 27th in the standings. Credit: Autostock

To finish the season, Craven finished 32nd at Martinsville, 35th at Atlanta, 38th at Phoenix, 39th at Rockingham and 29th at Homestead to finish 27th in the final standings.

That doesn't seem like a noteworthy accomplishment, until you consider that PPI had a new in-house engine program, a new crew chief, a new car make and new engineers.

"Considering all the changes we went through before the season, this season is definitely a success," Craven said. "No, we didn't achieve the amount of top-10s we had last year or finish as high in the points, but we got a win.

VIDEO CLIPS Craven edges Busch in a dramatic finish Play video Craven celebrates his win at Darlington Play video  •  More video highlights

"I'm all about progression, so to enter the year with a new engine program, a new crew chief, a new team engineer and a new manufacturer, to run as well as we did, and spend a decent amount of time in the top 10 in points, is definitely a step in the right direction.

"Now if we can do the same thing next year with the Chevrolet and keep plugging forward, we've got something."

General Motors' decision to discontinue use of the Pontiac Grand Prix in 2004 Nextel Cup competition means PPI will run Chevrolet Monte Carlos, the team's third make in five years.

Cal Wells fielded Fords from 2000 to 2002, then switched to Pontiac in 2003.