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Mike Skinner Hoping To Extend Martinsville Record In 200th Start
This Saturday’s Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway will mark Mike Skinner’s (No. 5 PC*MILER Navigator Toyota) 200th series start. Chances are pretty good the veteran driver could end that milestone start in a place he knows quite well: Victory Lane.
Skinner has three wins at Martinsville, tying him with Dennis Setzer (No. 8 Chevrolet) for the most victories at the track. Skinner’s first win came back in 1996. In 2007, he swept both races.
“I love Martinsville. It’s very, very unique and just an awesome place. I love the fans up there and the whole setting,” said Skinner. “Short-track racing is like drag racing with two hard, sharp corners, so I always enjoy going to Martinsville.”
For the 1995 series champion, three appears to be his magic number these days. In addition to his three wins, in 13 starts at the .526-mile track Skinner has collected three top-five and three top-10 finishes.
With three wins so far this season, Skinner sits third in points as the trucks return to action this weekend.
“I really look forward to going back this weekend with Eric (Phillips, crew chief),” said Skinner. “We went there for the first time together in the spring race and finished third. I feel like we’re a better team now than we were then.”
As for his third spot in the standings, Skinner knows his team is capable of contending but it’ll be a fight to the end. “Martinsville and Talladega can be wildcards here in these final five races. Every track we go to you can be victim of circumstance, but these two definitely open up the opportunity. We’re fighting to stay in the top three. If Matt Crafton (No. 88 Menards Chevrolet) has a hiccup or two, then we can feasibly get second. We’re going to try to protect where we are right now.”
Ron Hornaday Jr. Hoping To Finally Grab A Win At Martinsville
Ron Hornaday Jr. (No. 33 VFW Chevrolet) has been the driver to beat this season. He has six wins so far and if trouble doesn’t strike his team, Hornaday could very well be on his way to claiming a record fourth series championship.
But he’s taking it one race at a time. If you ask him right now what he really wants, his answer would be a win at Martinsville Speedway.
In 14 starts at the historic short track which has hosted the series in all 15 seasons since 1995, Hornaday has never made it to Victory Lane. The current points leader has five top-five and three top-10 finishes. He had to settle for second in March in the Kroger 250, his best finish out of the 14 starts. The race winner, by the way, was his boss, Kevin Harvick (No. 4 Bounty Chevrolet).
“I’ve been coming here for a while now and for some reason, we just can’t seem to break through,” said Hornaday. “It would mean a lot to win at Martinsville. It’s one of those tracks we’ve been coming to since the truck series started in 1995, and to finally add my name to the list of legends who have won there would mean a lot to me.”
A repeat of this race a year ago is something the driver and his crew chief, Rick Ren, are definitely looking to avoid. After starting from the pole, Hornaday led 154 laps before he ran out of fuel. It was a tough break for the driver and his team who were left with a 29th-place finish.
Hornaday’s misfortune also played a factor in the championship battle. He entered the race 39 points ahead of Johnny Benson. On Lap 155, Benson passed Hornaday’s sputtering Chevy and went on to win the race. That win also gave the eventual champion the points lead.
Loop Data: Momentum Swinging Both Ways For Johnny Sauter
This weekend at Martinsville Speedway should be an interesting case study of in-season momentum vs. track-history momentum.
Johnny Sauter (No. 13 Fun Sand/Rodney Atkins/Curb Records Chevrolet) will be the test subject.
Sauter comes into Martinsville as one of the hottest drivers in the series, winning his first series race, at Las Vegas, and finishing in the top five in each of the last five races. Over that that span, he has an Average Running Position of 6.4, a Driver Rating of 112.3, 97 Fastest Laps Run and a Laps in the Top 15 percentage of 96.9%.
Those numbers lie on the complete opposite side of the statistical spectrum as Sauter’s numbers at Martinsville.
Martinsville, in terms of Driver Rating, is Sauter’s worst track. He has a rating of just 51.0, and has yet to crack the top 20 in any of his three previous Martinsville starts in the series.
In Sauter’s three starts there (2006, 2008 and in March of this season), Sauter has an average finish of 24.0, an Average Running Position of 28.8 and has run only one lap in the top 15.
Kevin Harvick (No. 4 Bounty Chevrolet), on the other hand, has been strong at Martinsville (and in the three series races he has run this season, for that matter). In his four Martinsville races since the inception of Loop Data in 2005, Harvick has a Driver Rating of 112.0, an Average Running Position of 6.0 and a Laps in the Top 15 percentage of 93.1.
This will be Harvick’s fourth series race of the season. In the first three events, he finished second (at Atlanta), first (at Martinsville) and third (at New Hampshire). Not surprisingly, he notched a stellar Driver Rating of 131.8 and an Average Running position of 3.7 in those events.
Atop The Pit Box With Red Horse Racing’s Chad Kendrick
This weekend’s trip to Martinsville Speedway will be a little different for crew chief Chad Kendrick. In March, Kendrick and his driver, Timothy Peters (No. 17 Strutmasters/Red Horse Racing Toyota), were with Danville-based Premier Racing. Working with fewer resources, they were doing a lot with a little, sitting in the top 10 in points three races into the season.
Fast forward to June. Peters makes the move on the opportunity to run with Red Horse Racing, taking Kendrick with him.
Since their move to Red Horse Racing just before the Michigan race, the team has collected three top-five and six top-10 finishes. Peters also grabbed his first career pole at Nashville.
Kendrick discusses the season and what they expect heading back to Martinsville:
Q: What do you expect at Martinsville?
“Earning a top 10 at Martinsville in the spring would have felt like a win for us. Now we feel like a trip to Victory Lane is not only possible, we feel like it’s imminent for this team. At this point we should be earning top-10s each and every week so our goals have changed. Now our goals are to lead laps and win races and we feel like that is just as realistic for us now as those early goals were.”
Q: What is the biggest change from March to October?
“Timothy’s confidence level has changed dramatically since the last Martinsville race. We’ve earned three top fives since then and we both feel like a win is more possible than ever. I also feel more confident with myself. I trust my decisions and my own judgment more than I did back then.”
Q: What would a win mean to both of you?
“When I came to Red Horse Racing, I walked in my office and took out a calendar and wrote down all the rest of the races for the year. I put a big circle around Martinsville because that is the race Timothy and I want to win the most. We both really want this win and we both think we should win at Martinsville. At this point I think we would be disappointed with anything other than a win. It would be an amazing feeling to be in Victory Lane at our home track.”
Q: Your team has climbed from 17th to ninth in the standings. What is it like to make that move?
“At the start of the year we felt like with the combination of me and Timothy, that we would have no problem earning a top-10 points position. After the season started, we realized that wasn’t going to be possible with our resources.
“When we came to Red Horse I was hopeful that we could make up the ground we lost, but wasn’t sure it would really happen. I am thrilled that we climbed all those positions but that means the goal has changed again. Now we don’t want to just finish in the top 10 in points, we want to finish in the top five in points. Timothy and I both know that means we need to finish in the top five each of the last five races, but we are committed to the goal.”
Q: What has helped your team progress?
“Our communication gets better the longer we are together and that obviously helps performance. Probably the biggest thing that propels us to do well is the support we have behind us. Rick Gay and Tom DeLoach give us both a ton of support that only helps build our confidence. If we are struggling, I can count on Rick to help us. If we need something to better our program, Tom will give it to us. Everyone in the shop is counting on us and that gives us even more motivation to do well.”
