© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. by Joe Paolella

Mike Skinner Wins Inaugural Lucas Oil 200 Race At Iowa

NEWTON, Iowa -- Mike Skinner won his second race of the season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, leading 180 of 200 laps in the Lucas Oil 200 at Iowa Speedway.

Skinner pulled away from Aric Almirola on a restart with four laps to go on the .875-mile track, winning by 1.37 seconds, but he did have a few anxious moments.

"The motor died coming off (Turn) 4," Skinner said. "I don't know if it was a (fuel) pickup thing or vapor lock or what it did. I think it might have boiled some fuel or something. I just nursed her along there and this thing was so fast through the corner, it didn't matter what it was doing tonight."

It was the second victory for Randy Moss Motorsports. Skinner delivered the first in a rain-shortened race at Kansas Speedway in April. Skinner's victory was the 27th of his truck career.

#11 T J Bell Battles #5 Mike Skinner
© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. by Joe Paolella

#6 of Colin Braun & #57 of Norm Benning..battle early. Young meets old ..youth meets experience, but tonight youth will prevail..
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Skinner's Toyota started the inaugural race at Iowa from the pole, extending his all-time lead in the series to 47, but was passed immediately by Matt Crafton. Skinner regained the lead on Lap 18 and, with the exception of three laps led by Almirola gained through pit strategy, was in front to the checkered flag.

Early Race Cautions #10 Jame Buescher & #08 of Jamie Dick Make Contact in turn 2 at the beginning of the race.
© Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc. by Joe Paolella

"It was cool, really, really cool," Skinner said. "This one is for (owner) Randy Moss. He's a big race fan and part owner in this team with David Dollar."

How good does it feel to win tonight?

"This one only took us a couple of hours, the last one took three days.  I'll tell you, this Tundra, Jon Dysinger (engine builder) and those guys up there at Triad, they do such a fantastic job.  This team, David Dollar (co-owner, Randy Moss Motorsports), Randy Moss (co-owner, Randy Moss Motorsports) you better call me!

 It was just awesome. Toyota of Des Moines, Exide Batteries, PC Miler Navigator folks are up here tonight and they were nice enough to help out Tayler (Malsam) on his truck.

 Man, that was awesome."Almirola was running ninth when a caution came out on Lap 111 and the entire field pitted on separate stops for fuel and tires. Almirola took only two tires and fuel and moved into the lead. He wasn't able to hold off Skinner, but he maintained second the rest of the way.

#6 Colin Braun has a reason to smile... finished 3rd
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“It was a weird night.  We weren't very good either in practice yesterday and my guys worked really, really hard.  They were dirty from head to toe, covered in grease and everything else yesterday.  We changed everything but the driver and just couldn't find any speed.  We went pretty much back to how we unloaded and fired off today and we were really good.  Not really sure what we were fighting there yesterday but our Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota was real good today.  We struggled a little bit in the pits tonight but thankfully enough this tire was hard enough that we could take two tires there at the end and we held on for second."

"Our first stop was really bad and we just lost so much track position," Almirola said. "I told (crew chief) Doug George we had to get it back somehow, someway, so we took two tires. That was a great call on Doug's part. Thank goodness this tire was hard enough."

Almirola's second was his best finish in 41 truck starts.

Colin Braun continued his strong second half of the season by finishing third. He passed Ron Hornaday Jr. for the position with 10 laps to go.

Hornaday's fourth place allowed him to increase his lead in the championship standings to 225 over Crafton, who finished sixth. Johnny Sauter was fifth. Austin Dillon, despite spinning early in the race, finished 12th in his series debut driving the No. 3 Chevrolet owned by his grandfather, Richard Childress.

The Burnout ....... Not bad for a 52 year old driver..

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