Bodine, Skinner put last year's crash behind them

You've heard the cliches: "It ain't over til it's over" or "It ain't over til the fat lady sings," well, at last year's Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway, they couldn't have been more accurate.

Go back to August 12, 2006. Nashville Superspeedway is hosting its annual Truck Series race, the Toyota Tundra 200. Winning this race is a matter of pride for the Toyota drivers as the manufacturer they drive for is the sponsor of the race.

By the Numbers

Johnny Benson is the only driver in the top five in points to own a Nashville guitar.

• Complete story, click here

For Mike Skinner and Todd Bodine, both Toyota drivers, a win here would have special meaning. Skinner was has having a tough year, sitting 15th in points and looking for his first victory on the season. For Bodine, it was a different tale. Already a winner of three races, Bodine has a 182-point lead on second-place Johnny Benson.

Skinner and Bodine led 77 of the race's 150 laps and they were running 1-2 in the closing laps but a caution on Lap 146 meant a green-white-checkered finish where anything is possible.

On the restart, both Skinner and Bodine wanted this win, meanwhile, another Toyota driver, Johnny Benson just moved up to third after passing Jack Sprague. Benson could see the drivers in front of him were battling hard and he knew it was just a matter of time before the two got together.

"I knew something was going to happen," Benson said after the race. "I just wanted to be clear of whatever they were going to do. I knew they were going to get into it, but I didn't know when."

Benson might be the new "Miss Cleo" because he was right on. Bodine and Skinner hit each other and both trucks ended up in the wall on the final lap. Benson drove right by winning his third race of the season while Skinner and Bodine were left scratching their heads trying to figure out how victory slipped through their clutched fists on the steering wheel.

"We remember it every week," Bodine said with a laugh nearly a year later. "We classify it as a 'laughable memory' and we put it behind us. Mike says we're both boneheads, but we know better than that.

"We've chalked it up to hard-headed racing and we'll go to Nashville and race each other like we do anywhere. We never plan on mistakes like that -- but we probably expect hard racing out of each other."

Nearly a year later, the Truck Series returns to Nashville for Saturday's running of the Toyota Tundra 200 (6 p.m. ET, SPEED) and the race for the coveted guitar -- the trophy Nashville hands out to the winner -- has a little more meaning for the Toyota guys.

"Any time Toyota sponsors a race, there's added incentive to win," Bodine said. "But at Nashville, when there will be about 8,000 Toyota team members and associates -- a lot of them from the plant in Princeton, Ind. -- it becomes almost a sense of pride among the Toyota drivers to be the one to win the race."

Points leader Skinner agrees with Bodine on the importance of this race for the Toyota teams. (Continued)