Mike Skinner and ESPN Pit Reporter Jamie Little. (Photo courtesy of Toyota Motorsports)

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series star Mike Skinner is the defending champion of the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race and he's back to defend his title in '08.  The race is run in conjunction with the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach and has helped raise more than $1.6 million for local children's charities in Southern California.

First Up:  Practice and Media Day through the streets of Long Beach

Tuesday in Long Beach was my first day to run with this year's field.  I was really disappointed that I missed the four days of training that all the Toyota Pro/Celebrity racers go through together out at Willow Springs Raceway.   Last year, when they told me that I needed to go through training, I thought to myself, 'Oh man, I don't have time to mess with all of that stuff' and then when I got up there I found that was the coolest part of the whole thing.  This year, due to Sprint Cup conflicts, I didn't get a chance to get out there.  And truthfully, I missed out on a lot of the fun and the camaraderie of getting to know the people, the celebrities and the other pro's while just being together for four days.  To me, the race itself is just the finale to everything that builds up to the race.  There's the training out at Willow, and then the practice day when they actually close down the city streets just for the celebrities to practice and let the media get involved.  Then when we get back to Long Beach on race weekend, we make the children's hospital visit on Thursday, and you just start to get the warm, fuzzy feeling that you're actually doing something for charity and helping a wonderful company like Toyota do something for charity.

This week, we just got accustomed to the track and I got a chance to meet most of the field and say hello.  We've got Funny Car champions Tony Pedregon and Whit Bazemore in the pro field, and 2000 Olympic gold medal cyclist Marty Nothstein is a pro as well, as is off-road racer Beccy Gordon.  She's Robby's younger sister.   ESPN pit reporter Jamie Little is in the race, along with some of the other celebrities like the great running back Eric Dickerson, Wilmer Valderrama from "That 70s Show," Drew Lachey, who won "Dancing With the Stars", and William Fichtner, who's starred in a bunch of great movies like "Armeggedon" and "Blackhawk Down".   John Salley, who I had the chance to get to know from last year's race, also is back this year, but couldn't make the practice. 

Truthfully, I love road racing.  It's funny because it's probably one of my big loves of racing - and I'm pretty darn good at it usually.  It's something because I'm not known as a good road racer.   If you've got a Cup car and you're looking for a driver to go to Sonoma --- you look for a Scott Pruett or a Boris Said or a Ron Fellows.  And then if you've got a car and you want to go make a Vegas or a Texas race, you think of me because I'm known as a good qualifier.  To be honest, I feel like my road racing is pretty good, but when you don't get to do it very often, you can get a little rusty.  I've had some success, though.  I won the Cup race (in Japan) and I won at Topeka, Kansas, in the trucks.  I did win at Long Beach in last year's Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race.  Of course, when people ask me about running Long Beach, I have to admit, I won a few street races when I was a lot younger - usually there were blue lights chasing behind me - and as long as I didn't get caught, I considered that a win.

Next Up:  Race Weekend

SOURCE: Toyota Motorsports USA/Edited by Steve Keller