Where is ... Ricky Craven (cont'd)

That's not to say, however, that Craven has lost the competitive fire that has burned so strongly inside him for so long. He hasn't.

"I've never qualified myself as being retired. I've never qualified myself as no longer driving," Craven said. "But having said that, I'm not preoccupied with not driving. ... Here I am. I'm 41. I would not rule out racing again, because I don't think you ever lose the desire to compete. I do miss competing."

Ricky Craven's last Cup victory came March 16, 2003, at Darlington.

By not racing, Craven is concerned for fans who have supported his career year after year, come what may.

"I certainly have an allegiance to my fans," Craven said. "They've been fabulous. If you ever went to New Hampshire Speedway, you'd recognize how well they support me. That does weigh on me. I think there's some disappointment there, and I feel for the people who have followed my career, that they expect me to continue racing. But I have to balance that with my daughter being grown up and heading to college within a few years."

Then again, given Craven's past history, it's probably best not to count the guy out just yet.

The Maine native endured one of the sport's scariest accidents in a 1996 Cup race at Talladega, in which he flipped up the track between Turns 1 and 2, bounced off the retaining fence, then rolled back down the track, where his car was struck by Elton Sawyer's machine on the apron before finally, mercifully, coming to a rest.

Craven suffered a spinal compression fracture in the mishap, but never missed a start. He had dodged a Buick-sized bullet. He would not be so lucky the following year at the newly opened Texas Motor Speedway.

Just 45 minutes into the first practice session, Craven crashed. Hard. He was not alone, not after numerous other incidents during practice and qualifying. Then, as if to put an exclamation mark on the whole debacle -- or it might it have been a question mark? -- there was a massive 13-car pileup in the first turn of the first lap of the race itself.

"Ugly" wouldn't begin to describe NASCAR's first visit to Texas Motor Speedway.

None of the other drivers involved in accidents were hurt as seriously as Craven. The fractured right shoulder blade and two broken ribs were bad enough, but it was the severe concussion that would impact his career for years to come.

After sitting out just the Texas and Bristol events, Craven returned to his No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports entry in 1997. Still, things weren't just right. He would start the next season, but ran just four races before getting out of the car due to dizziness and blurred vision. He would return with a pole at New Hampshire, his hometown track, but eventually resigned from Hendrick Motorsports after running just four more races.

Time has given Craven a chance to look back on what might've been had it not been for the accident in Texas.

"Everything makes more sense as you get older," Craven said. "Certainly, there are few times that I go back and reflect on my career with any regret. Very few times. I do, however, wonder at times if I could've changed a few things, the opportunity at Hendrick would've been much more rewarding.

"The wrecks are an aspect of the sport. Instead of looking at the negative effect of the wreck, I look at the positive effect of the wreck. It forced me to relax in the race car a little bit. I found a way to manage that urgency to win, I think, in large part, because I had to. It put me back on my heels and I was in a position where I had to recover. I had to start over, basically."

Craven landed with owner Cal Wells in 2001, and late in the season, he won the first race of his Cup career after a stirring duel to the checkered flag with Dale Jarrett. He'd beaten the defending series champion one on one.

Thing is, as great a finish as that was, the Martinsville win doesn't hold a candle to what came down the pike two years later. For all intents and purposes, Craven and Kurt Busch beat the living daylights out of each other for the last three laps of the race and finished in a grinding, smoking dash to the finish line.

It is considered one of the greatest finishes in NASCAR history.

"The bottom line is what I appreciate the most about Darlington is the way we won and the way the fans responded to it," Craven said. "You can't create a perfect finish. It has to happen. I think on that day, it happened. We didn't take one another out. We raced each other as hard as you can race somebody, without crossing that line. I think that was why the race was received as well as it was by everyone."

Hours after the Darlington race finished, Craven talked about sitting on his porch in his old age and discussing with his wife how he'd won it. It'll be OK. He'll have the time to do it.