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Richard Allen Craven (born May 24, 1966) is an American stock car racing analyst and former driver. Prior to his broadcasting duties, he was a NASCAR driver who won in four different series—the ARCA Menards Series, and the three national series.
He occasionally served as a pit reporter when NASCAR aired on TBS in the mid-1990s. Craven is perhaps most well known for winning the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400, beating Kurt Busch in the closest finish in Cup Series history at the time. A margin of victory, 0.002 seconds, only tied by Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer in April 2011 at Talladega with Jimmie coming out on top. It stood for more than twenty years until Kyle Larson bested Chris Buescher by a margin of 0.001 seconds at Kansas Speedway in May of 2024.
At the end of the year, Craven left Hedrick to drive the No. 25 Budweiser Chevy for Hendrick Motorsports. Craven finished in the top-five in the first two races of the season. He finished third in the 1997 Daytona 500 behind his teammates Terry Labonte in second and Jeff Gordon in first, giving Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2-3 sweep of the Daytona 500. While practicing for the inaugural Interstate Batteries 500, Craven crashed hard into the wall. He missed two races due to a concussion suffered from the wreck. Upon his return, he won the Winston Open and finished a then-career-best nineteenth in points with a total of $1,139,860 in winnings for 1997. After the 1998 season started, the side effects of the concussion began to appear, and Craven was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, and was forced to miss several races until he recovered. He returned at his home track at New Hampshire International Speedway later that year, where he won the pole. After four races, he was released from Hendrick, and did not return until the final three races of the season, filling in for Ernie Irvan at MB2 Motorsports.
In January the next year, it was announced that Craven would replace Scott Pruett in PPI Motorsports's No. 32 Tide Ford. He won the pole in the summer race at Michigan International Speedway, and in the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville Speedway, he held off Dale Jarrett for his first career Winston Cup win. In 2002, he won two poles, scored nine top-ten finishes, and finished a career-best 15th in points. In 2003, his team switched from Ford to Pontiac, providing the No. 32 car with a factory-backed engine program. In the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway, he battled Kurt Busch for the win, defeating him by .002 seconds in what was voted in December 2009 as the "Finish of the 2000s" in the Sprint Cup Series. Craven win at Darlington in 2003 top (Sprint) Cup race of the decade In that race, he became the last person to win in a Pontiac. Craven failed to win races again that season and dropped twelve spots in the points standings. After he did not post a single top-ten finish three-quarters of the way through 2004, he was replaced by Bobby Hamilton Jr., and only returned to run at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, his home track. His last Cup start was the 2004 EA Sports 500 at Talladega, where he drove in a development car for Joe Gibbs Racing, the No. 11 Chevrolet.
In 2005, Craven moved to the Craftsman Truck Series to drive the No. 99 Ford for Roush Racing. Craven was second in points after nine races, and there was talk about him being promoted to Mark Martin's No. 6 Nextel Cup ride for 2006. However, a brutal stretch of finishes led to a free fall in the point standings, and it was announced that he would be gone from Roush at the end of the year. Craven did win at Martinsville Speedway late in the year, and finished fourteenth in points.
His final NASCAR start came at the Goody's 250 at Martinsville in the Busch Series for FitzBradshaw Racing in 2006. He finished 39th after the brakes failed on his No. 14 Dodge.
| † - Qualified for Ernie Irvan |
| 1995 | Larry Hedrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 14 | 16 |
| 1996 | 36 | 13 | ||
| 1997 | Hendrick Motorsports | Chevrolet | 40 | 3 |
| 1998 | 32 | 14 | ||
| 1999 | SBIII Motorsports | Ford | 28 | 26 |
| 2000 | Midwest Transit Racing | Chevrolet | DNQ | |
| 2001 | PPI Motorsports | Ford | 18 | 23 |
| 2002 | 43 | 17 | ||
| 2003 | Pontiac | 25 | 26 | |
| 2004 | Chevrolet | 28 | 23 | |
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