Mike Skinner headed to Las Vegas as the defending race winner, and he wanted to dominate this year just as he did the last. He entered the race second in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship standings and knew that every position and every decision was extremely crucial to retaking the points lead.

Rain showers limited teams to only one practice session Saturday morning. Skinner and his No. 5 Tundra crew worked hard to get their truck atop the speed charts during practice. And top the charts they did, as Skinner ran a hundredth and a half seconds faster than any other driver. The team looked forward to qualifying later that day.

Skinner had captured the pole in each of the last three years at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and he was hoping for his fourth pole. After posting a time of 30.854 seconds, Skinner seemed to be en route to his 10th pole of the season. However, Travis Kvapil had other plans, and Skinner ended up second on the starting grid.

Skinner immediately took the lead once the race began Saturday evening. He held the point for five laps before reporting to his crew that it felt as if he had a right front tire going down. He lost many positions after being forced to back off and not drive as hard as he would have liked.

After the caution flag waved on lap 33, Skinner pitted for four tires, fuel and a trackbar adjustment. He restarted eighth on lap 38.

Skinner fought a tight handling truck throughout the night and tried his best to maintain his position on the track. After falling to the 10th position, Skinner was relieved to see the caution flag wave again on lap 87. He came to pit road for four tires, fuel, air pressure and trackbar adjustments.

However, the truck remained tight all night, leaving Skinner to spend the rest of the evening in an ill-handling Tundra. He did his best to keep it off the wall and in one piece and finished 13th.

His level-headed driving job earned Skinner the NCTS points lead. He leads by three points over Ron Hornaday, who had a right front tire blow out early in the race.

Skinner will lead the NCTS to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in two weeks. The race will be televised live on SPEED, Saturday, Oct. 6.