Daytona 500 2000 - Search for Victory Lane continues in 2000

Search for Victory Lane continues in 2000
ESPN The Magazine

'99 EARNINGS: $2,222,321 | POINTS: 10th | WINS: 0 | TOP 5: 5 | TOP 10: 14

MIKE SKINNER

What Makes Him Go: Skinner's right-hand man is Larry McReynolds, one of the savviest crew chiefs in the business. Skinner became the beneficiary of McReynolds' talents in mid-1998 when the crew chief's pairing with Dale Earnhardt fell apart. The only thing that could slow this duo down is if McReynolds tries to form his own team, as he attempted to do last season.
What Makes Him Slow: Don't blame Skinner for being skittish about Texas Motor Speedway. In the track's inaugural race in 1997, he finished 22nd in a strong car after being involved in two big wrecks. He crashed hard there again in 1998, breaking his right shoulder blade and stretching neck ligaments. It took him all season to fully recover. And, you guessed it, last year he crashed at Texas again and re-fractured his right shoulder blade.
Key Stat: 2 That's how many non-points victories Skinner has since joining the Winston Cup. The wins came in 1997 and 1998 at the season-ending exhibition races in Japan. So he knows how to win -- he just needs to do it on American soil.

By almost any standard, Mike Skinner had a successful 1999 season.

He finished in the top 10 in Winston Cup points for the first time in his career. He led a total of 465 laps in 14 different races and led the most laps in two of them. And he was also the ninth-best starter in the series, with an average starting position of 14. (He used only one provisional starting spot all year.)

But the key word is "almost," because Skinner never took a checkered flag. Although he ran near the front of the field throughout the season, his best finish was a third at Charlotte in October.

The year seemed ripe with opportunities. He finished fourth in the Daytona 500. After four races -- two sixths and another fourth -- he actually led the Winston Cup championship. But three poor finishes in a row sent him tumbling to 11th.

He should have won in July at Pocono, where he led most of the way, but he got out of sequence on pit stops and was shuffled back to 10th. He also led the most laps at Martinsville in September, but ran his car too hard and faded to sixth. Battling for the lead in the final laps at Talladega in October, he was caught outside the draft and drifted back to 13th.

Skinner, 42, is a native Californian who moved to the Carolinas to pursue his racing career. He struggled in the early '90s as a journeyman stock car driver and would take nearly any ride offered, mostly in substandard cars. Then he was tapped by Richard Childress to drive his NASCAR truck.

Skinner won the first-ever truck series race, and went on to won the first championship in 1995. He won eight truck races in 1995-96 before moving into the Cup series, where he was 1997 Rookie of the Year. But his '98 season was brutal.

He was battered in a crash at Atlanta, then hurt even worse at Texas, painfully hyper-extending his neck -- an injury that caused him to miss three races and plummet to 40th. In a sign of better things to come, Skinner clawed his way back to 21st.

Now, with 110 Winston Cup races behind him, Skinner is still looking for victory No. 1, which would make for a good year by any standard -- no "almost."

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