Skinner frustrated, unhappy with slow start

Truck Series driver Mike Skinner is in unfamiliar territory and he's not happy about it.

Skinner, who won the inaugural Truck championship in 1995 and is tied for second in career victories with 28, is 13th in the standings, 216 points out of first, heading into Sunday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.

He has finished in the top 10 in 64 percent of his 208 starts, yet he has one top -10 in 2010, a seventh-place finish in the most recent race, April 2 at Nashville. Skinner was 24th at Daytona, 14th at Atlanta and 27th at Martinsville.

Ironically, Skinner was less pleased with his truck at Nashville than anywhere else.

"What's funny about it is our best finish we've had all year is the worst we've ran all year," Skinner said. "Nashville is a great racetrack for me as a rule, and it was literally the worst we've ran all year. We were terrible, terrible all weekend. We qualified OK, but we didn't run very well at all."

If there's any good news for Skinner, it's that he's the defending race winner at Kansas, where he dominated one year ago in a rain-shortened event. On the other hand, he won't have the same truck -- it was demolished in a spectacular crash several weeks later at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Skinner will debut a new Toyota this weekend.

"Any time you bring a brand-new truck, that's good and bad," he said. "Anything can happen. If you don't have any issues with it, it's like fresh lettuce -- it's great."

Skinner, who won three races last year and finished third in the standings, has never placed worse than 11th in the points standings when running a full season. Skinner and his fellow series regulars have had a hard time this year keeping up with Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch, two full-time Cup drivers who have won three of the first four races.

Skinner says it's a matter of dollars -- they have more than is available to his Randy Moss Motorsports team, which is co-owned by David Dollar and Randy Moss.

"They have got the money, personally, to pull out of their pocket if they need to and spend it on their race team," Skinner said. "David Dollar doesn't have that, and Randy Moss won't put any money in. So we're just trying to do what we can do."

Skinner also is still adjusting to first-year crew chief Gene Nead, who has spent some time on the Cup side this season with Robby Gordon.

"I appreciate Gene going like he went and helping Robby Gordon a couple weeks. I appreciate him doing that and getting the information on the tire and so on and so forth," Skinner said. "By the same token, we really need to keep our eye on the ball. I've turned down four opportunities to run Cup this year so I could keep my eye on the ball, and I need him to do the same thing.

"We just need to keep focused on this No. 5 Toyota instead of whatever's going on in the Cup series, I think. So I think it's a balance, but I like Gene and I think we're going to win some races. I really do."