Three of the next five races, beginning with Friday night's AAA Insurance 200 presented by J.D. Byrider at Indianapolis Raceway Park, will be on tracks measuring less than a mile in length.

Veterans like Ron Hornaday Jr. and Mike Skinner can't wait to get the short-track action started. They should; together, they have a combined 37 short-track victories.

Both are double winners at ORP, Skinner leading all 350 of the track's first two races flag-to-flag in 1995-96. The pair also have victories at Bristol Motor Speedway — which continues the short-track portion of the schedule next month — and no doubt are optimistic about becoming the inaugural winner at .875-mile Iowa Speedway on Sept. 5.

The axiom in the series is "do well on the short tracks and succeed in the points standings." Only one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion has failed to win a short -rack race. Todd Bodine is the exception, having scored all 17 of his victories on speedways.

Bodine, fourth in the current standings and trailing Hornaday by 214 points, will have to solve his short- track riddle if he is to contend for a second championship as the 2009 season nears its midpoint. Bodine hasn't exactly been lost on short tracks — he's finished second four times — but .686-mile O'Reilly Raceway Park has been problematic for the 2006 champion. He's yet to record a top-five finish at ORP. Bodine's best finish, sixth, came in 2007.

"We haven't been perfect with our short-track program and basically you have to be perfect to be in position at the end of the race," said Bodine.

"We've worked really hard on our short-track program and we'll be trying a totally different set up this week in the Ventrilo Tundra at O'Reilly Raceway Park."

Crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. agrees being in position to win is important, but isn't everything.

"A lot of a short-track win is luck," said Hillman.