Mike Skinner celebrates with his team after winning the Qwik Liner Las Vegas 350 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at the Las Vegas Nevada Motor Speedway.
Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008 | 10:15 p.m.
Qwik Liner 350
Mike Skinner wins the Qwik Liner 350 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Hapless Homecoming
In the blink of an eye Brendan Gaughan saw what certainly seemed to be his strongest finish in more than three months, slip away on his hometown track.
While Mike Skinner was stealing victory away from Erik Darnell by the slimmest of margins, Gaughan spent the final lap of the Qwik Liner Las Vegas 350 spinning out of a Top 5 finish.
“We ran great, there’s no denying we had a chance to run up front and even win,” said a disappointed Gaughan, who ended up 20th Saturday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “In the end we just don’t get the finish for it. These are the things that have just killed us lately.”
Even more disappointing than his third straight 20th or lower finish, was that it came in front of Gaughan’s favorite fans.
“I just wish I could have done more for all that people showed up and supported me tonight,” said Gaughan, who won the race in 2003. “I gave them a couple of good spins, came from the back to the front, and had a big smoke screen there at the end.
“I guess I’ll just have to go back to the South Point and drown my sorrows.”
On a day when a record number of wrecks helped Mike Skinner to his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory in 22 races, it was a fender-bending save in morning practice by the No. 5 Toyota Tundra driver that paved his path to victory lane Saturday night at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“Man, I didn’t know what was gonna happen after our qualifying run,” Skinner said.
Skinner avoided a crash with the retaining wall, then came back to edge Erik Darnell, taking the Qwik Liner Las Vegas 350 by two-hundredths of a second. Skinner passed Darnell not only on a green-white-checker restart, but also the final few inches of the last lap.
“I didn’t like the cautions. I thought it was ridiculous how some people were driving in the back,” Skinner said of the race’s record-setting 12 cautions. “But then again, I knew if the race had stayed green I would have stayed in second place.
“So what I didn’t like about the race turned around and won the race for me.”
In addition to the photo finish in front of a crowd of 50,000, there was quite the shakeup in the series points standings as Johnny Benson saw his 74-point edge over Ron Hornaday Jr. shrink to a single digit after Benson wrecked out of the race on Lap 64 while in the lead.
“There’s no doubt that we had a fast truck — it was flawless,” said Benson, who holds a 2,858 to 2,857 advantage. “We’ll have to pick up the pieces for later. That’s outside of our control. We can’t fix that problem.”
Hornaday — who briefly took control of the points lead on one of the late restarts before relinquishing it with his fifth-place finish — said he was glad to move closer to Benson, but was disappointed it had to come because of a wreck.
“One point behind. OK, that is fine, we will take it,” said Hornaday, who was the pole sitter and leader of the race's first two laps before Skinner passed him. “It is better than 70 out. We were getting 20 at a time, and it looked like it was his (Benson’s) job this week to get the points. I hate to see Johnny do that. He was running very hard. I saw he didn't put tires on there at the beginning (first pit stop), and I blew a tire here last time.”
Another driver, hometown favorite Brendan Gaughan, didn't blow a tire nor his temper despite spinning out on the final lap, which took away what looked like a certain Top 5 finish. Instead, the No. 10 driver had to settle for 20th place and more struggles during a season full of them.
“That's been the story of our season,” Gaughan said. “So very frustrating. At the end of the race we had a truck that was capable of making some major moves too.”
Jack Sprague wasn’t very happy with the moves that Gaughan was making in the first place, angrily awaiting the Las Vegas driver on the caution lap after Gaughan rear-ended him on Lap 78 which forced him from finishing a race for the first time this year.
“I raced Brendan underneath him most of the race and never touched him, so I don’t know what his excuse is -- just got taken out,” said Sprague, who was restrained by a NASCAR official hoping to avoid a repeat performance of last week’s post-race fight at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Darnell took the lead on Lap 84, then briefly lost it before regaining the front spot again on Lap 102.
During the final 30 laps, five more cautions mixed up the field. Darnell was able to hold off those surges from Laps 104 through 145. But Skinner, who was just the second driver to win a trucks race twice in the 14 years the event has been held at LVMS, passed him by faking low and going high.
“I knew that we had the third-best truck, but I knew that I had one shot and you have to make the best of these things,” said Skinner, who recorded his 25th career victory. “I tried him (Darnell) on the bottom and they lined up behind me, and I said, ‘Well, I have to fake him to the bottom and try him on the top.’”
The move worked briefly, but Darnell moved back ahead as the two drivers drove side-by-side, trading a handful of leads over the final four turns.
“If it was a green flag racing, we would have run away with the race,” Darnell said. “Skinner got a run and I tried to hold him off. I ran those last two laps wide open and I’m sure he did, too.
“His truck was just a little better than ours on the restart.”
Skinner said he was glad the race didn’t end on caution and admitted he was going to try everything he could without wrecking Darnell to win.
“Erik’s truck was awfully good,” Skinner said. “I was not going to wreck Erik to win the race. I was going to push him, bounce off of him, do whatever I had to do, but he’s a friend, a class act and a good guy.
“But right now the (No.) 5 truck is back in Victory Lane and it feels great.”
Andy Samuelson is a sports writer/editor for the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at [email protected] or 702-948-7837.
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