The Nashville 200 weekend at Nashville Superspeedway proved to be challenging for Mike Skinner and the No. 5 International Truck/Monaco RV Toyota Tundra team. The race was a one-day show with only tech inspection taking place on Thursday afternoon. For the International Truck/Monaco RV Toyota Tundra team that meant having two practices, qualifying, and the race all within a 14 hour span.
In the initial practice session, Skinner struggled a bit with the handling of his Tundra, but he was still able to lay down the 10th fastest lap of the morning with a time of 31.088 seconds. In the final practice of the day, Skinner and the No. 5 Toyota Tundra team really struggled with the handling of their Tundra. Ultimately, the International Truck/Monaco RV team decided to change virtually everything but the driver to improve the performance of their Toyota Tundra. Skinner made his first laps with the new setup during qualifying where he secured the fourth starting position for Friday night’s 150-lap event.
Early in the race, Skinner called in to tell the crew that the International Truck/Monaco RV Tundra was extremely tight on the start, but it loosened up once the tires built up air pressure. In fact, before the end of the run, Skinner had a problem with his truck feeling like it was “on top of the track,” which made picking up the throttle a challenge. Despite making both an air pressure and wedge adjustment, Skinner called into the International Truck/Monaco RV team to report more handling problems during the next run.
The International Truck/Monaco RV Toyota Tundra team had one more chance to get the truck handling the way Skinner needed it to. Skinner returned to pit road on lap 97 for his first and only green flag stop of the day. The crew serviced the truck with four tires, fuel, and a minor air pressure adjustment before sending Skinner back out on the 1.33-mile track. When Skinner crossed the finish line, he was scored in the seventh position and moved himself up eight positions in the 2010 owners’ points to be scored unofficially in the 15th position, just 28 points out of 10th.
“Today was disappointing,” said Skinner. “We couldn’t get our Toyota Tundra dialed in to exactly where we needed it to be successful. The truck itself wasn’t a bad piece, but it wasn’t great either and you need to have a great truck to win at this level of competition. Nashville Superspeedway is one of my favorite tracks, and it would have been so cool to be able to bring home the [Sam Bass-designed] guitar. Thankfully we get another chance to win the trophy again when we come back [to Nashville Superspeedway] later this year.”
