The 1995 Truck Series Champion Becomes the Points Leader with Win
KANSAS CITY, Kans. (April 28, 2009) – After tornadoes, heavy amounts of rainfall, and two attempts to complete the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, Mike Skinner claimed the first victory for co-owner Randy Moss and Randy Moss Motorsports on Monday afternoon at Kansas Speedway during a rain-delayed and rain-shortened race. Skinner, driving the No. 5 Bad Boy Mowers Toyota Tundra, captured the checkered flag to win his 26th NCWTS race and his 10th win with Toyota Motorsports. In addition, the 1995 Truck Series Champion has taken over the lead in the NCWTS championship point standings.
Starting the race from the second position on Saturday afternoon, Skinner quickly grabbed the lead going into turn one, but as the first restart of the race happened on lap seven, the veteran driver fell back to third-place. Skinner continued to race solidly in the top-five, as the caution flag flew on lap 37. Crew chief Eric Phillips called Skinner to pit road on lap 39 for four tires and an air pressure adjustment. Skinner returned to the attention of his No. 5 Bad Boy Mowers crew the following lap for fuel. After a quick pit stop, the Daytona Beach, Fla. resident restarted on lap 43 from the first position. Just as soon as the green flag waved, the rain began and the caution flew once again on lap 46. After completing several laps under caution, NASCAR red-flagged and eventually postponed the race until Monday.
After an unusual day off, the No. 5 Randy Moss Motorsports team was ready to return to racing action. Unfortunately, Mother Nature still had other plans as the rain continued Monday morning and pushed back the conclusion of the race until shortly after 2 P.M. CT. Restarting the race from the first position on lap 62, Skinner wasn’t about to give the lead up as he led until lap 88. A competition caution waved on lap 87 and Phillips radioed to Skinner to come to pit road for four fresh tires. Saying that the truck was “pretty good,” Skinner didn’t ask for any adjustments as the Toyota came back to pit road on lap 88 for fuel.
Restarting the race on lap 91, Skinner was pushed back to 14th-place as various pit strategies were played on pit road. Within nine laps, Skinner had mowed his way through the field and was running in the fifth position. Determined to get back to the front of field, the 1995 Truck Series Champion regained the lead on lap 119. Four laps later, the caution flag waved for the final time as the rain started to fall once again at the 1.5-mile oval. After attempting to dry the track, NASCAR called the race on lap 132 and declared Skinner the winner of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250. Skinner led three times during the 132-lap race for a total of 67 laps.
With his first victory at Kansas Speedway, Skinner moved up three positions to become the leader of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship point standings. Skinner currently is 25 points ahead of former champion Ron Hornaday Jr.
Carrying momentum off of their first victory together, Mike Skinner and his No. 5 Randy Moss Motorsports team will head to Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina on Friday, May 15th for the North Carolina Education Lottery 200. SPEED will have live television coverage of the 134-lap event, beginning at 8:00 P.M. Eastern. In addition, select affiliates of MRN Radio and Sirius-XM NASCAR Radio will have the live radio broadcast.
Mike Skinner Quotes:
How special is this win for you?
"There are just so many people that contribute to this thing at Randy Moss Motorsports. We got us one. It's just really, really cool. We have a lot of effort going on here to build this whole program at Randy Moss Motorsports with Tayler (Malsam) and myself. We're just going to keep digging and hopefully we can get another one or two of these things before the year is out."
Are you surprised that this team won so early?
"Not really. If we would've been in front at Martinsville, they would've had to wreck us. We had a pretty good truck at Martinsville. Track position was so key. I said earlier that I think we finished a little better at Atlanta than we should have and worse at a few other places than we should have. Today, I thought we had about a fifth-place truck. The weather came into play. Whatever it did to the race track -- it freed our truck up a little bit and that Tundra was humming. Hat's off to Toyota and Tundra."
What has Eric Phillips (crew chief) meant to this team?
"Eric (Phillips, crew chief) has done a fantastic job with this thing. I have learned to shut my mouth a little bit as a driver, and he has learned how to deal with drivers like me, and it has been working well so far."
How is your 2009 season?
"It's just been wonderful with the guys starting as late as they did in the whole mix and changing manufacturers. They have two new drivers and as a team I think the guys at Randy Moss Motorsports have done a phenomenal job. It's a tribute to David Dollar (owner), Eric (Phillips, crew chief), Doug (Wolcott, No. 81 crew chief) and all those guys that worked all those late night shifts and around the clock to put it together. We've had some runs that we should have finished better than we did and we've had some runs where we probably shouldn't have finished as good as we did. It's been kind of 50-50 and balanced itself out so far."
-RMM-