WRAP-UP: Skinner claims wild truck race at Fontana

By Dave Grayson

Each and everytime that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series visits the California Speedway the fans can be guaranteed of one thing: the final laps are going to be a very wild, jump out of your seat, affair and it’s something everyone will be talking about the next day. The February 23d San Bernardino County 200 was no exception. When it as all over, Mike Skinner collected the win and Mark Martin was snake bit for the second time in six days.

The enitre world watched the Daytona 500, the week before, and saw Martin lose this highly coveted race to Kevin Harvick by a mere matter of inches. Now fast forward to six days later in Fontana. Martin was a dominant factor, in a Ford F150 fielded by the famed Wood Brothers, during the entire race and was hoping to give his new team their first ever NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win.

Sadly, the San Bernardino County 200 wasn’t going to be Martin’s race either. The senario started with eight laps left in the race when David Starr’s Ford went spinning around through the backstretch after contact from another truck. The field lined up for a five lap shootout led by Martin with Ron Hornaday Jr and Skinner right behind them. But Martin never made it to the green flag. Instead he went spinning wildly through the infield grass after being collected by Hornaday and the caution flag came right back out. Meanwhile Skinner played heads up and got around Hornaday before they passed under the yellow flag to take the lead. Skinner made quick work of running out the green-white-checker laps with Hornaday in tow. Jack Sprague, Carl Edwards and Ted Musgrave completed the top five.

After the race a remorseful Hornaday said “it wasn’t a case of us getting together, I just flat ran into him. Mark brought us down at five grand, (5000 RPM), and then all of a sudden he started slowing up. When you’re running second and you’re hard on the gas you start spinning your tires to avoid a hit and prevent everybody else from bottling up. I touched him but I didn’t have the back tires on the ground and I tried to get off of the gas to get off of him. It was just one of things. I hate that it was Mark Martin because you just don’t want to wreck him. He had a dominant truck but we might have been able to give him a run during those last couple of laps but instead I wound up giving Skinner a win.”

Meanwhile Skinner was parking his Bill Davis Racing Toyota into the California Speedway’s Gatorade victory lane to begin celebrating his 20th career series win. “It was a great night for our Toyota. It looked like Mark had us beat. I got a little greedy trying to get around Mark at first. I would rather finish 15th than to wreck Mark for the win. I told myself that if I hammer this throttle I’ll probably get loose and if I do I’ll probably wreck us both so I let him go back and then Ron had a good run at him. Ron went by us and passed us clean and I felt that we had something for him and could get back around him,” Skinner said.

The race winner also noted that he knew exactly how Martin felt and added “I lost so many of these races, in a green-white-checker deal, and I’ve been where Mark was and ended up where Mark is now. Dog gone it, it’s about time we won one. I told myself to stay in the gas because I knew if Mark got going again there would not be a caution flag. We got past Ron before the caution came out and everything just worked out great. I just can’t say enough about Toyota giving me this opportunity to drive this truck for Bill and Gail Davis.”

Skinner’s win was especially sweet because he’s had bad luck in the past at the California Speedway which is, technically his home track. He was born and raised just a short trip down the freeway in Ontario.