A California dirt-track racer who won the first Truck Series title in 1995, finished runner-up in 2007 and later became a test driver on The Grand Tour.
Mike Skinner is a former NASCAR driver who won the first Truck Series championship in 1995, with eight wins for Richard Childress Racing. He later appeared as a test driver on The Grand Tour, the British motoring show.
Mike Skinner is a former American stock car driver who was the first champion of the NASCAR Truck Series, in 1995. He also raced in the Winston Cup and Busch series, where his best seasons came with Richard Childress Racing and Bill Davis Racing, and he later became a test driver on The Grand Tour.
Who is Mike Skinner?
Michael Curtis Skinner was born on 28 June 1957 in Susanville, California. He competed in the NASCAR Cup, Busch and Truck series, and he was the first champion of the Truck Series, in 1995. Two of his sons, Jamie and Dustin, also raced in NASCAR.
His racing started at Susanville Speedway in the seventies, in a Plymouth Road Runner. He won three championships on California dirt tracks before moving to North Carolina, where he found work on race crews, including Rusty Wallace's team and the Petty operation.
His early NASCAR attempts were sporadic. He debuted in the Winston Cup Series in 1986 for the Zanworth Racing Team, in a No. 19 Pontiac. In three starts his best result was 22nd, and his Busch Series debut at Darlington the following year ended 27th.
Between 1990 and 1993 he made only a handful of starts, with Mansion Motorsports, Dixon and Jimmy Means, while racing late models for Gene Petty. In 1994 he won a local track championship with Petty's team, and he also raced a Busch Series car, the No. 88, winning one pole but failing to finish a race.
His 1990 start at North Carolina Speedway, in a No. 13 Glidden Paints Buick for Mansion Motorsports, ended 35th after a rear-end failure. Dixon gave him four starts across the following two seasons, and Jimmy Means gave him a single race in 1993.
The first champion of the NASCAR Truck Series, a Rookie of the Year and a driver whose career ran from dirt tracks to a television show.
How did Skinner win the first Truck Series title?
Richard Childress Racing chose Skinner for the first NASCAR SuperTruck Series season in 1995, driving the No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet C/K. The opening race was his first victory, and he went on to take eight wins, seventeen top-fives and ten poles, which made him the first champion.
Those eight wins came while the series was still defining its identity, and his name remains attached to its first trophy. The numbers say it all: he averaged a start of 3.9 and a finish of 4.8 across the season. He matched his win total the following year but dropped to third in the standings. The SuperTruck title was the first championship awarded in the series, which gives it a permanent place in its history.
The season after his title he also made five Winston Cup starts for RCR in the No. 31 Realtree car, with a best finish of twelfth. He filled in for Dale Earnhardt while Earnhardt recovered from injuries suffered in a Talladega wreck.
What did Skinner achieve as a full-time Winston Cup driver?
Skinner moved up to full-time Winston Cup racing with RCR in 1997, driving the No. 31 Lowe's Chevrolet. Lowe's backed the car until 2001, when the sponsor left the team. He took poles at both Daytona races, recorded three top-tens and won the Rookie of the Year award, despite missing one race and finishing thirtieth in points.
The next season brought nine top-tens and a 21st-place finish in the standings, although injuries forced him to sit out three races. Two exhibition wins in Japan also came during that stretch, when NASCAR first staged races in Asia.
1999 was his best Winston Cup year. He recorded five top-fives, fourteen top-tens and two poles, and he finished tenth in the standings, a career best. That season he also drove thirteen races in the Busch Series for Emerald Performance Group and took the Atlanta race after a disqualification was overturned.
Why did his Winston Cup career stall after 2000?
Skinner's position weakened after 2000, when his crew chief, Larry McReynolds, retired from NASCAR to broadcast for Fox Sports. In 2001 a severe wreck at Chicagoland left him with a concussion, a fractured ankle and a torn knee ligament, and his RCR seat did not survive the season.
In 2000 he had eleven top-tens and finished twelfth in points. Before the crash that followed he had managed only one top-ten in 2001, and Lowe's had sponsored his car since 1997. At Chicagoland he cut a right-front tyre and crashed head-first into the turn one wall. He missed the next five races while Robby Gordon filled in, and Lowe's left RCR to sponsor the Jeff Gordon and Rick Hendrick team that signed Jimmie Johnson for 2002.
Skinner returned at Michigan, but another accident at Richmond led him to choose ACL surgery, and he announced that he would miss the rest of the season. Gordon finished the year with an upset win at New Hampshire.
What happened in Skinner's 2002 and 2003 seasons?
In 2002 Skinner drove the No. 4 Kodak Chevrolet for Morgan-McClure Motorsports. A sixth at Rockingham was his best moment, but he managed only three top-fifteen results and finished 31st in the standings. The team moved to Pontiac in 2003, and Skinner was let go after fourteen races.
Later in 2003 Billy Ballew Motorsports used him for four Truck Series races, and he took over Jerry Nadeau's MBV Motorsports entry, the U.S. Army car, for eleven Cup races. The Richmond weekend was a highlight and a lowlight: he crashed his first car in practice, and after rolling out the spare he still took pole.
The No. 01 stayed in his hands until Martinsville, when Joe Nemechek took over to prepare for his own ride. His last start of the year was at Homestead, in Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 00 Bacardi Chevrolet.
Skinner's career by series
| Season | Series and team | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Winston Cup, Zanworth Racing | Debut; best finish 22nd in three starts |
| 1995 | SuperTruck, Richard Childress Racing | First series champion with eight wins |
| 1997 | Winston Cup, RCR No. 31 | Rookie of the Year; poles at both Daytona races |
| 1999 | Winston Cup, RCR | Career-best tenth in points |
| 2001 | Winston Cup, RCR | Chicagoland crash; season ended after Richmond |
| 2004 | Truck, Bill Davis Racing | Two poles in six races with the team |
| 2005 | Truck, Bill Davis Racing | Seven poles, two wins, fifth in points |
| 2007 | Truck, Bill Davis Racing | Five wins; runner-up by 54 points |
| 2009 | Truck, Randy Moss Motorsports | Three wins and three poles; third in points |
| 2012 | Winston Cup, Hamilton Means Racing | Last start, at Michigan in August |
How did the Truck Series years continue?
Skinner returned to the Truck Series in 2004 as one of Toyota's main drivers, and from 2005 he was a fixture at Bill Davis Racing. That year he collected seven poles and two wins, and in 2007 he was runner-up in the standings after five wins and twelve poles.
In 2004 he drove the No. 42 Tundra for Bang! Racing for the first eighteen races, running ninth in points, before a dispute between the team's owners and Toyota split the operation. He then moved to the No. 5 Tundra for Bill Davis Racing. On the Cup side he returned to Childress for the Daytona 500, finishing 22nd, one lap behind winner Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The 2007 title race was close. He began the final race 29 points clear of Ron Hornaday Jr., but tyre trouble on several occasions left him 35th, and Hornaday took the championship by 54 points.
He added eight poles and one win in 2006, finishing tenth in the standings. In 2008 he won once and took four poles on the way to sixth. In 2009 Randy Moss Motorsports, which fielded two trucks that year, signed him for its No. 5 Exide Batteries Tundra, and he took three wins and three poles, ending third in points.
The following season with Randy Moss went downhill. He managed two top-fives and an eighth in points, and he parted ways with the team on 19 January 2011.
Did Skinner keep racing in the Cup Series?
Yes, but only in short stints. In 2008 he ran eleven Cup races for Toyota, including seven for Team Red Bull. In 2011 he drove a Germain Racing Toyota Camry, and he also attempted the Daytona field with Eddie Sharp Racing without making the race on speed.
His last Cup start came in August 2012 at Michigan. He had joined Hamilton Means Racing in May and started the Southern 500 at Darlington for the team, and an earlier 2012 Truck race at Daytona ended in a crash with teammate Cale Gale at Eddie Sharp Racing.
What was Skinner's role on The Grand Tour?
Skinner handled test driving on the opening series of The Grand Tour, the British motoring show, in 2016. He was known as The American, a contrast to the show's British presenters, and he appeared for one season before Abbie Eaton replaced him.
He announced on 7 November 2017 that he would not return for the second series, and his name has stayed linked with that early run of the programme.
What is Skinner doing now?
Skinner hosts the Skinner Roundup on SiriusXM Speedway with co-host Angie Skinner. The show runs on Sunday afternoons, when there is no Cup race, and it gives listeners a weekly look at the sport from a former driver's point of view.
He has two sons from an earlier marriage, Jamie and Dustin, and both of them have raced in NASCAR. Skinner took his surname from his stepfather, William Bill Skinner, after his mother left his birth father and remarried when he was eight.
