PHOTO: Motorsport.com
SEASON IN REVIEW
Ontario, California driver Mike Skinner scored his first LASTCAR Cup Series Championship in 2005, scoring three last-place finishes in ten starts during a thirty-six-race season.
Skinner was competing in his sixteenth season on the Cup Series tour. As reported in previous articles, Skinner’s first Cup Series start came at Martinsville, Virginia back on April 27, 1986, the first of ten starts over six seasons before he joined Richard Childress Racing for the inaugural Truck Series season in 1995. Skinner became the Truck Series’ first race winner and series champion that year, and was awarded a five-race run for Childress’ second Cup team in 1996.
In 1996, Skinner brought back Childress’ #31 Chevrolet for the first time since Neil Bonnett’s last-place run in the 1993 finale. He immediately improved his best Cup Series finish by more than ten positions - a 12th-place finish in his season debut at the Goodwrench Service 400 at Rockingham, North Carolina on February 25, 1996, a race won by teammate Dale Earnhardt. In 1997, Skinner acquired sponsorship from Lowe’s and joined Loy Allen, Jr. as the first two rookies to win the pole for the Daytona 500. Though Skinner finished just 30th in points with three top-ten finishes, he became 1997's Rookie of the Year.
From 1998 through the first part of 2001, Skinner steadily improved, culminating in a 10th-place showing in the 1999 point standings during a year with five top-five finishes and fourteen Top Tens. On April 16, 2000, Skinner scored a career-best 2nd-place finish in the DieHard 500 at Talladega, Alabama, the day Jeff Gordon won his 50th career Cup Series race. He also dominated the Cracker Barrel 500 at Hampton, Georgia on March 12, 2000, leading 191 of 325 laps before his engine blew up while leading with twenty laps to go. Teammate Earnhardt would go on to score the 75th of his 76 career victories in a photo finish over Bobby Labonte.
Skinner’s 2001 season began with another photo finish, this time with Skinner on to. In the Second Gatorade Twin 125-mile qualifying race for the Daytona 500 on February 15, 2001, Skinner nipped Dale Earnhardt, Jr. by just four-thousandths of a second. He led 24 laps in the tragic Daytona 500 three days later, but finished 26th, starting a very difficult season in which he scored just one top-ten finish. A hard hit to the outside wall in the inaugural Tropicana 400 in Joliet, Illinois left Skinner with a concussion that forced him to miss the next five races. Although he’d make five more starts in the #31 that season, Skinner lost his ride to relief driver Robby Gordon, who scored the team’s first win in the season finale at Loudon, New Hampshire on November 23, 2001.
Skinner then ran one and a half seasons for Morgan-McClure Motorsports, but scored just one top-ten finish before losing his ride midway through the 2003 season. He then became the fourth of five different relief drivers for Jerry Nadeau following Nadeau’s career-ending accident in practice at Richmond, Virginia on May 2, 2003, but then lost that ride in the #01 U.S. Army Pontiac to new full-time driver Joe Nemechek. After making just one start in 2004 - the Daytona 500, where he drove a Childress car for the first time since 2001 and finished 22nd in #33 - Skinner was again given a one-off ride for the following year’s 500, this time for Bill Davis Racing.
On February 17, 2005, Skinner turned heads by racing his unsponsored #23 Bill Davis Racing Dodge to a 3rd-place finish in his qualifying race for the Daytona 500, an event which had just been lengthened from 125 to 150 miles. Skinner started 7th in the 500 three days later, carrying last-minute sponsorship from Argent Mortgage, and was still racing the leaders when he was taken out in a multi-car crash on Lap 187. Skinner made four more starts in Davis’ #23, but finished no better than 29th and missed the race at Dover, Delaware on June 5. Skinner left the team at mid-season and didn’t have a ride for the next seven races.
Skinner returned in time for the UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega, Alabama on October 2, set to run a #00 Aaron’s Chevrolet fielded by William Edwards, 2004 LASTCAR Cup Champion Todd Bodine’s first team of his title season. However, when Bobby Hamilton, Jr.’s #32 Tide Chevrolet missed the field, a confusing chain of events put Skinner in a different car for Sunday. Hamilton’s Cal Wells team bought Skinner’s ride to keep their driver in a Chevrolet. Skinner’s team then bought the unsponsored #34 Ford qualified by Hermie Sadler and re-numbered it with Skinner’s Aaron’s graphics. The switch made little difference in the race itself, as Skinner was gobbled-up in a seven-car pileup on Lap 20, resulting in his first last-place finish of 2005.
Skinner’s other two last-place runs that season came when he moved to the #37 Dodge team of R&J Motorsports, which scored a stunning 9th-place finish with Kevin Lepage in that year’s Daytona 500. Skinner had far less success, however, finishing last in his first two starts with the John Carter-owned team. The first came at Hampton, Georgia on October 30 when his #37 BoSPOKER.net Dodge was taken out in a two-car crash after five laps of the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500. The other occurred November 6 in the Dickies 500 at Fort Worth, Texas, where the #37 Patron Tequila / BoSPOKER.net Dodge broke the rear end after 151 laps. Skinner ended up 49th in the 2005 point standings.
Following the 2005 season, Skinner has made just forty-six more starts. Twenty-one of those starts came in 2011, fifteen of which behind the wheel of the #60 Big Red Toyota, a “start-and-park” entry fielded by Germain Racing to fund its primary #13 GEICO Toyota. Skinner came close to contending for a second LASTCAR Cup Series Championship that year, but nine DNQs that season hampered his progress. His 286th and most recent Cup start came in Brooklyn, Michigan on August 19, 2012, when his #98 Phil Parsons Racing Ford finished 39th with electrical problems during the Pure Michigan 400.
Skinner still remains active in other NASCAR divisions and, to date, has twenty-eight victories in the 231 Truck Series starts.
OTHER LASTCAR HEADLINES
Casey Mears, Skinner’s teammate in 2011, scored his first Cup Series last-place finish in 2005 when his #41 Target Dodge was involved in a three-car crash after twenty laps of the Food City 500 in Bristol, Tennessee on April 3. Two years later, Mears would move to Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #25 National Guard Chevrolet to an upset victory in the Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carolina on May 27, 2007.
Also in 2005, Greg Sacks scored his first last-place finishes in more than eight years when he became the first Cup Series driver to sweep both last-place finishes at the Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Sacks, who started his own team in 2004, qualified 41st and 35th in his #13 Sacks Motorsports Dodge, but fell out after 12 laps with overheating problems on June 12, then after five laps with brake problems on July 24. To date, these are the last two of Sacks’ 263 career Cup Series starts.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1st) Mike Skinner (3)
2nd) Stanton Barrett, Jeff Fuller, Mike Garvey, Bobby Hamilton, Jr., Carl Long, Casey Mears, Greg Sacks, Brian Vickers, Mike Wallace (2)
3rd) Wayne Anderson, Johnny Benson, Jr., Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Chad Chaffin, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Bill Elliott, Shane Hmiel, Tom Hubert, Jeff Green, Stuart Kirby, Travis Kvapil, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Petty (1)
