HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- In what is billed as Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it was the one battle that dripped with real and not manufactured drama.

It was to be the appropriate capper to a season whose highlight reel could be entitled, "Truckers Gone Wild."

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But in the end, it was disappointingly anti-climactic. In fact, it became anti-climactic long before the end.

When the left-rear wheel came off driver Mike Skinner's No. 5 Toyota on Lap 74 of the Ford 200 Friday night, all the wheels came off what Skinner had hoped was to be a championship season in the Craftsman Truck Series. The title went instead to Ron Hornaday, driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet who captured his third series championship.

Tired of the Jimmie Johnson-Jeff Gordon love-fest at the Nextel Cup level? Well, as much as it would be a better story to write if Hornaday hated Skinner and vice versa, guess what? These two are pretty tight away from the track as well.

They met the media earlier Friday afternoon, hours before the race that was to settle their remarkable and highly entertaining season-long duel. And it was, as it always seems to be when the two get together, almost like a comedy routine.

"It's been a blast and a real battle," Skinner said. "We've gotten along pretty good on the track and off the track for the most part. Even though it's gotten pretty crazy the last couple of weeks, I still think we're maintaining our normal selves."

When they are their normal selves, Skinner usually plays good cop to Hornaday's bad -- or at least Hornaday's gruffy, grumpy cop. He wasn't pleased to be told he had to meet with the media before the race, which interrupted his afternoon nap.

"I should be sleeping in my bed, but Owen Kearns [senior manager of communications for the Truck Series] said we had to come and do this thing," Hornaday grumbled. "We're paid to be racecar drivers, not media people."

Truckers through and through
Actually, they're paid to race trucks. Both Skinner and Hornaday tried going the racecar route in NASCAR and found it littered with broken dreams.

Skinner won the inaugural Truck Series championship in 1995, Hornaday the second in 1996 and another title in 1998. But then they viewed the series as little more than a springboard to greater glory.

Hornaday subsequently spent three full seasons in the Busch Series, and in 2000 was runner-up to Kevin Harvick, his current truck owner, in the rookie standings for that series. He eventually graduated to the Cup Series, competing in a total of 45 events and driving a full season for the legendary A.J. Foyt in 2001.

After running a full Truck schedule in 1999, Hornaday competed in a total of just three Truck events over the next five years -- and found that he increasingly missed the action that many folks believe most consistently provides the best racing in NASCAR's three premier series.

"This is cool. I missed the Truck Series when I went off to try some other things for a couple of years," Hornaday said.

Skinner's career path involved a similar hiatus from the trucker's life. After winning the championship in '95 and finishing third the following season when Hornaday won it, Skinner bolted for the big-time, too. He won one race in eight partial seasons in the Busch Series and raked in a total of $14.5 million in race winnings over 244 starts at the Cup level, although the best he ever did there was to finish second in the spring race at Talladega in 2000.

Both drivers were employed at one time by Richard Childress Racing, with the goal being to eventually succeed at the Cup level. But now, with Hornaday at age 49 and Skinner at 50, they both feel like this is where they belong -- trading body blows and good-natured verbal jabs in a world that seems to seep with much of the old character of NASCAR racing that too often is missing these days in the other series.

"I think the reason that both Ron and I are over here in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is because we could get back in equipment that was capable of winning," Skinner said. "I could be over there in the Cup Series, struggling to get in the races every week with all the go-or-go-home cars. And if I had to do that to make a living, that's what I would do.

"But having the opportunity to drive stuff that is capable of winning races is wonderful. ... I don't think either one of us will walk away from here [after the race] saying, 'Oh, what a horrible year.' It's been great year, and we've had a hell of a lot of fun."

True to his word, Skinner didn't spout any sour grapes a few hours later after Hornaday had clinched it.

Coming of age
Skinner actually led the race early, but had to come in on Lap 25 when he thought he felt a right-front tire going down. When crew chief Jeff Hensley subsequently told him that the tire hadn't been down, and Skinner continued to feel a vibration, the veteran driver sensed trouble was coming.

It arrived on Lap 74 when his left-rear tire flew off as he headed into the pits and his whole left-wheel assembly broke apart. He had to take his No. 5 Toyota behind the wall, and by the time he got it fixed and got back on the track, he was 11 laps down to the leaders and hopelessly behind Hornaday in the race that really mattered.

All Hornaday had to do from there is avoid the type of disaster that had stricken Skinner. He eventually scored a seventh-place finish, while Skinner struggled to next-to-last in 35th. It was by far Skinner's worst finish of the 25-race season.

No matter what had happened, both men pledged earlier that they intended to leave the track Friday night with heads held high.

"Even if I come in second, this has been awesome -- one of the best years I've had in racing," Hornaday said then. "If it wasn't for Mike racing me as hard as he has, I would be winning this championship by 300 points, and vice versa. Whoever wins this, it's going to be the coolest thing. When you've got equipment like we do, these trucks are so fun to drive."

They are a joy to watch as well. The race within the race was another entertaining one Friday, with Johnny Benson passing Kyle Busch on a green-white-checkered finish to capture the victory.

Friday marked the 12th time in 13 seasons the Craftsman Truck Series had come down to the final race of the season before the championship was settled. Despite the anti-climactic nature of the Hornaday-Skinner duel on this occasion, it was yet another reminder that these guys are loads of fun to watch.

It is a series that, like its top competitors, has come of age and found its niche.

Skinner joked that both he and Hornaday had grandchildren that were "watching this deal," to which a smiling Hornaday added, "Just coming down here knowing that at our age we can still race for a championship and have fun with it is great. To be as old as we are and still be competitive and running out front and having as much fun as we are, yeah, it's still cool. We're going to try to do the same thing again next year."

Skinner is all for that. Everyone should be. The fact is, these guys aren't that old -- and they don't really act their age on the track anyway.

"We've both had an awful lot of fun this year. We've both won races," Skinner said. "I'm not going to go jump off a bridge or anything. I'm probably going to go back to my motorcoach and have a cool refreshment or a glass of wine or something -- and start getting ready for Daytona. That's all you can do."

The glass of wine doesn't really fit into the trucker profile, but everything else does.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.