Conversation: Mike Skinner

DOVER, Del. -- Mike Skinner joined a handful of former NASCAR Nextel Cup stars in the Craftsman Truck Series this season when he signed up with upstart BANG Racing.

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Despite a new team and a new manufacturer, Skinner sits fourth in the points standings after a fourth-place finish at Dover last weekend. And he came close to claiming Toyota's first NASCAR victory when he battled Bobby Hamilton to the wire at Atlanta.

NASCAR.COM's Lee Montgomery recently sat down with Skinner to talk about life in the Craftsman Truck Series, about Toyota, about his future and about one of the loves of his life: wine.

Have things gone better than expected for you guys this year, considering -- new team, new manufacturer? Have you been surprised at some of the results so far?

Mike Skinner: I've been surprised at some of 'em and not surprised at some of 'em. For where (Toyota) was and BANG Racing was right at the first of the year, from where we've come in this amount of time, I'm impressed with it.

	Skinner is 77 points behind points leader Dennis Setzer. Credit: Autostock

As a racer, you always want to go faster, you always want to do better, you want to win races. I think that's coming. I think about half of the Toyotas out there have a chance to win a race. The other half is kind of a training program. It's going to be a work in progress for a while.

But it wouldn't surprise me if we start winning races pretty quick, or if one of us gets a win. We've got a long ways to go, but we've come a long ways.

Yeah, I'm disappointed that we couldn't be a little bit better. But I'm also very impressed with where we're at for the time we've been out with Toyota and a brand new engine.

Can't say enough about the engine. I thought that was going to be our worst deficit, and it's really not been as big a problem as we thought. They've done a really good job with it.

And you almost won in Atlanta. You came within a couple hundred feet.

Skinner: (laughing) Yeah. Our truck was extremely hooked up. The Atlanta deal, the best truck won the race. Bobby (Hamilton) had the best truck all day.

We put ourselves in position to beat him, and we had him beat. And the caution came out. Without that caution, three laps to go, because we got his tires hot on him racing him hard.

Without the caution, he was going to have a hard time getting back by the 42. We were really, really good down on the bottom. On that restart there, he just had a lot of momentum on cool tires. That was the difference. He deserved to win. He was the best truck.

You mentioned the Toyota engine that you thought was going to be one of the hindrances. How close is that to some of the other stuff out here right now. Are you within 20 horsepower now? I've heard different numbers throughout the year.

Skinner: Well, I don't really want to talk about the numbers, but I will say that we still have some gains that we have to make. But I will say this, if you give me something that's 15 or 20 horsepower down and let me get it really hooked up, we can win with it.

	Skinner signed on with Bang Racing after bouncing around the Cup Series in 2003. Credit: Autostock

Rick (Ren) and I have not done our job, as far as getting the truck perfect. We really missed the setup at Mansfield. Still had a shot at the top five and got back in traffic and got in a mess.

But Charlotte, we had a shot at a top-five. Unfortunate thing, we blew a tire. NASCAR only gave us one tire. We you only put one new tire on and one old tire on, the new tire works the other tire to death. The cord was showing all the way around on that tire. It was very, very unsafe. We just brought the truck back in one piece, and that was history.

But the engine's not the biggest thing holding us from winning a race. We've got to have it all together. The engine's got to run perfect, we've got to hit on the perfect setup, we need a little bit of luck -- we haven't had a lot of luck.

You make your own luck to a certain extent, but when that caution comes out, and it's against you -- which it has on us three times this year already -- you start going, "Man, when does the shoe get on the other foot?" But I'm pretty happy right now.

What's been some of the reasons why this team has been so good? You talked about some of the other Toyota teams being a training ground. Has it been mostly Toyota's involvement, or has it been the guys on the team, or everything together?

Skinner: Everything together. There's nothing wrong with the other teams. There are a couple teams with rookie drivers, and those guys are going to be the future of the sport, but right now, they're still in a training program. That's just the way it works.

I think the success from BANG Racing has been guys like Rick Ren and Larry McReynolds and Eric (Phillips, Travis Kvapil's crew chief). (Owner) Alex (Meshkin) is a hustler.

And you've got two champion drivers. You've got a guy that's got a lot of Winston Cup/Nextel Cup experience, you've got a guy that's won a championship a year ago, you've got a guy that's won a championship in the Craftsman Truck Series.

This is a people business. And if you put the right people in the right places, you should have some success.

Has (Toyota)'s approach to the deal -- them pretty much building everything and then giving it over to you -- changed your perspective on how to approach racing at all?

Skinner: Never thought in a million years that would work. Still not sure. I've just got to say, my hat's off to them. They have done a phenomenal job. I can tell you this, all the trucks are pretty darn equal.

There's not any one Toyota that gets better stuff than the other one. They're all pretty equal. I'd say they're all within four horsepower every week, and that's pretty hard to do. I've been on a two-car team, and it's hard to get two cars within four horsepower.

They've just done fantastic job. That sure made me a believer. They made me (from) a guy who thought he knew something, but apparently I didn't. I didn't think they could come in here and change the way we do things in NASCAR and succeed at it.

But I tell you what. I'm sure some of the other manufacturers are starting to look at their work ethic and see how (Toyota)'s doing it and saying, "Wow. It seems to be pretty good."

Do you miss Cup at all? Do you watch the races on Sunday and go, "I wish I was there"?

Skinner: I miss pay day. You get paid an awful lot over there. I don't miss not being competitive. If I would've had the opportunity to drive the Army car and they would've been able to put a three-year deal together, I probably would have stayed there for three more years and done that deal.

	Jerry Nadeau

First of all, we thought Jerry Nadeau was going to come back. And then when the program came around, it was only a one-year deal.

With Toyota coming into the sport, I thought for myself, for the age I am and the amount of time left I want to race -- I want a good job when I get out from behind the steering wheel. I feel like if I do Toyota a great job behind the steering wheel, I have a better chance of being part of the program, whether it be in Research and Development when they decide to go to Nextel Cup, if they do, whether it be consulting the race teams, whatever it may be.

I've got about 30 years of racing experience. Surely, that's got to count for something. I've worked for the teams that had no money, I've worked for the teams that had all the money, I've worked for the guy in between there.

I guess I've kind of seen all facets of it, I've seen all areas of the competition level, the people level.

You can have all the money in the world. If you don't have the right organization and the right people, it's not going to do you any good. You can have not as much money as you think you have to have to be competitive to do it right.

Is (your son) Dustin some of these plans for you for the future? I know he's racing a little stuff down in Florida. How is he doing, and is that part of your future as a car owner, perhaps?

Skinner: Well, we'll just have to see what happens there. But I will tell you this, Dustin is a very talented young man. He's not very mechanically inclined, but he's very steering-wheel inclined. He's great behind the wheel. And nowadays, I think you can get away with that.

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When I came along, if you weren't a great mechanic and a fabricator and a chassis man, you didn't have a prayer. Nowadays, you've got to get real good at giving feedback and let these crew chiefs do what they're hired to do and what they make their money for.

Dustin's out there. He's a hot commodity. I don't know that he's been exposed yet, and I don't know what's going to happen, but he's definitely part of my future plans.

I always said when I retired I wanted to be his coach driver. That seems to be what the dads all do over there in the Nextel Cup Series. Maybe I can get a good coach driving job.

Now that's not a bad job if you can get it.

Skinner: Nah, if you're making the money Jimmie Johnson's making, dad ought to be getting pretty good bonuses, you know?

I hear you're a little bit of a wine enthusiast. Any plans to open a winery like Childress someday?

Skinner: I told Richard that I wanted to come up there and run his, and he said the profit margin couldn't stand me. I like the product too much. Richard and I are still good friends.

I like Florida. This could all change, but at this point and time in my life, I don't have any plans of moving out of Florida. It would be pretty hard to run a winery and live in Florida.

If I got involved in something out in Napa or something, maybe I'd do that at some point and time in my life.

I really like wine. I really enjoy everything about it and how it's done and the health benefits of it if it's used properly. I'm really, really interested in it.

I worked for Richard before, and he knows how much money I like to make, so he probably won't hire me to run his winery.

Have you got a big wine cellar at your house in Daytona?

Skinner: Yeah, I do. We designed it all ourselves. We keep anywhere between 1,000 and 1,500 bottles. I found out a long time ago that if you want to be able to drink good wine, you have to buy it when you can afford to buy it. And then you have to sit on it, usually three to five years. Then the wine really comes into its own.

You buy a bottle today that's $28, and you wait three or four years to drink it -- the trick is being good at buying what's good now and finding the price. I've got win that I've given 25 bucks for that's probably 150 bucks right now that we're enjoying today.

You open up a $150 bottle of wine and now you've only got 25 bucks in it, it makes you feel good.

Is there a bottle of wine that you and Angela have set aside for when you finally get this win for Toyota?

Skinner: Yeah, there is. Probably my favorite wine is Altamura. Frank Altamura sends me a big bottle every year for Christmas, him and Karen do. We really enjoy them. Their wine is probably my everyday drinking wine that I like the most.

We've got a six-liter bottle of Silver Oak that we set back. We'd like to pop that thing open when we get this win. You know, there's several bottles in my cellar that are very, very special. Hopefully, I live long enough to have enough special experiences in my life to get to open them.

You don't want to keep them until they go bad, but if you've got a good cellar, that stuff keeps for quite awhile.