SKINNER AT GATEWAY: Fresh off his second victory of the season, Mike Skinner will be making his 197th start in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series when the green flag drops for the Copart 200 at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill. Saturday afternoon. Mike Skinner (NCWTS) has competed on the 1.25-mile track on six occasions in the truck series. Skinner has earned one top-five and two top-10 finishes. He started from the pole position in 2007 and posted his best performance, a fourth-place effort in 2005.
PHILLIPS' CHASSIS CHOICE: Crew Chief Eric Phillips and the No. 5 Randy Moss Motorsports team will utilize chassis MDM-106 for Saturday afternoon's event. This particular truck is a favorite of the team and has been run at five previous races this year, including Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, The Milwaukee Mile, Memphis (Tenn.) Motorsports Park and O'Reilly Raceway Park near Indianapolis. This is also the same truck the team raced to victory last weekend at Iowa Speedway.
SKINNER SAYS: "I can't wait to get to Gateway. Every time you win, you can't wait to get back to the track the next week. Set-up wise, the track is somewhat similar to what we ran last week at Iowa Speedway. It's been a rollercoaster ride for me there over the years. We've run well there and we've been taken out a time or two. I've had a spindle break and torn my shoulder out there. We lost a lot of points to Hornaday there one year. It's looked like we were going to win and then we had a parts failure. It's been a real ride. I'm just hopeful that this time around we can run as well as I have in the past, but be able to finish it up."
THE SEASON'S STATS: The No. 5 team has posted seven top-five and 11 top-10 finishes in 17 events this season, including two wins, which came at Kansas Speedway in April and last weekend in Iowa. Skinner holds down the third spot in the NCWTS driver point standings, 56 markers behind second place and 281 points out of first.
WATCH AND LISTEN: Race coverage will be televised on SPEED and heard live on select affiliates of MRN Radio and Sirius-XM NASCAR Radio Channel 128, beginning at 2:30 p.m. (ET).
SKINNER CAREER NCWTS STATS: Mike Skinner has scored 27 victories in 196 starts in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series competition and has earned 87 top-five and 125 top-10 finishes since making his first start in Phoenix (and going on to win the event) in 1995. He has also earned 48 pole positions during that time, including one in last weekend's event.
POINT AND CLICK: Fans can continue to vote for their favorite driver for the Most Popular Driver Award through the end of October. The results of the online balloting will be announced at the NCWTS awards banquet at the end of the season. Visit www.nascar.com for more details and to cast your vote for Mike.
