Skinner's solid run keeps him solidly in No. 4

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Mike Skinner's assessment that he had a top-five car in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 seemed accurate -- but rarely has an 11th-place finish been as rewarding or as tantalizingly aggravating as Skinner's was Sunday at Darlington Raceway.

	Mike Skinner

One thing team owner Larry McClure was able to do was put to rest rumors that circulated in the Darlington garage that Skinner was on his way out as driver of the No. 4 Kodak Pontiac.

"We're not looking at anybody else," McClure said. "I've heard everybody questioning this, that and everything else.

"Look, every week that goes by I question what I do and what everybody else here has done. If you don't win, you'd better do that."

Skinner ended 2002, his first season with MMM, 31st in points with a single top-10 finish. But McClure shuffled the deck by bringing in veteran mechanic Tony Furr as competition director and switching manufacturers, to Pontiac.

"We've been behind and trying to catch up," McClure said. "Mike's a good race car driver and he can help us get there. Everybody's just got to be focused. I'm not out here looking for another race car driver."

"Tony Furr came over here and we only had about three or four cars started and he's made an impact. We're going to keep going. I think everything's going good.

"As far as saying that Mike's not going to be here -- I'm not going to say that. All I'm saying is we've got to perform."

Sunday, the team did that.

"Tony, Chris (Carrier, crew chief) and the guys put me in a race car today that was capable of running in the top five," Skinner said. "We had a great car.

"We struggled a little bit qualifying and qualified 23rd. But we were able to pass people even though the car was a little bit tight."

Two-thirds of the way through the 293-lap event Skinner drove away from race leader Jeff Gordon to get on the tail end of the lead lap. In fact, he drove away from the race leader, but Skinner abused his tires in doing so and nearly crashed his Grand Prix.

"I drove every lap like I was qualifying," Skinner said. "When you do that here at Darlington you burn the tires up and I did, and finally it got away from me. I made a pretty good save to not wreck it."

After the final restart, Skinner ran fourth in line behind Gordon, Elliott Sadler and eventual runner-up Kurt Busch. That was proof enough that the Morgan-McClure Motorsports car definitely had something for 'em.

That it ended up 11th epitomized the frustration of this season for McClure and his team.

"I thought we had one of the best cars all day," McClure said. "We had really good pit stops but got caught by a caution and got caught down a lap. We just never could get our lap back.

"That's the best we've done all year, it will help us in the points so we'll build on that, go to Bristol and wear their ass out."

"We just came home the first car a lap down," Skinner said. "We'd have never been a lap down if the caution wouldn't have come out as soon as we hit pit road (but) it seems like that happens to us an awful lot.

"But, you know what? When it gets as good as it has been bad, we're going to be hell."

Until then, McClure said he would keep his magnifying glass out.

"Let me tell you how this deal works," McClure said. "Everybody that works on that race car is in jeopardy because we've got to perform. Whatever opportunity is in front of us, we've got to perform.

"Well, we got an 11th place finish, but we all knew we were capable of better.

We did a couple things wrong today and if we'd have done them right, we would have been out front.

"Still, that's the best (finish) we've had all year and I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. You've got to be thankful for what you get and we'll look forward to Bristol."