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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Keeping Pace

NCWTS Recap: Mike Skinner Wins O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 At Kansas Speedway

Mike Skinner and his No. 5 Bad Boy Mowers Toyota team celebrate winning the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway. The win was Skinner's first of the season and the first for the team since becoming Randy Moss Motorsports last summer. (Photo Credit: Darrell Ingham/Getty Images)  (Darrell Ingham / The Spokesman-Review)
Mike Skinner and his No. 5 Bad Boy Mowers Toyota team celebrate winning the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway. The win was Skinner's first of the season and the first for the team since becoming Randy Moss Motorsports last summer. (Photo Credit: Darrell Ingham/Getty Images) (Darrell Ingham / The Spokesman-Review)

Mike Skinner waited until Monday afternoon to pick up the rain shortened NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win in Kansas.

By Tim Tuttle

Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (April 27, 2009) — Mike Skinner drove Randy Moss Motorsports to its first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory Monday in the rain-delayed and -shortened O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.

Skinner’s win was his first of the season and 26th of his series career. He joined the team, formed when NFL star Moss became partners with Morgan-Dollar Motorsports owner David Dollar last July, in January to form a two-truck effort with rookie Tayler Malsam.

“Randy, we got it buddy,” Skinner said. “We got us one. It’s really, really cool. We’ve got a lot of effort to build this program.”

Johnny Benson finished second, followed by Brian Scott, Ron Hornaday Jr. and Brian Ickler.

Skinner took the lead on a restart on Lap 119, passing Stacy Compton. Skinner and the rest of the field had stopped under caution. Skinner only took fuel. Hornaday had led the previous 24 laps and had to stop twice, once for four tires and once for fuel under the new pit-stop rules that do not allow refueling and changing tires in the same stop. He emerged in ninth.

The race had four laps under green following the Lap 119 restart before it began raining and the caution came out. The trucks ran 14 laps under caution before the race was red-flagged. With the rain continuing to fall, NASCAR decided to end it after 132 laps, 35 short of the scheduled distance on the 1.5-mile track.

Rain had forced NASCAR to suspend the race with 52 laps completed on Saturday, with Skinner as the leader. After a four-hour delay for more rain on Monday, the race resumed with a 10-lap run under caution.

Skinner held the lead until pitting on Lap 88. Scott stayed out, along with seven other trucks, and moved to the front. Hornaday took the lead on the Lap 91 restart.

Skinner moved into the points lead, 25 in front of Hornaday, with five races completed.

Todd Bodine, second in the points going into the race to Kyle Busch (who wasn’t entered at Kansas), tagged the outside wall on the backstretch on the 10th lap during Saturday’s segment and his Toyota sustained severe damage to the front right. Bodine returned Monday 42 laps down, finished 21st and slipped to third in the points, 57 behind Skinner.

It was the first race in the series for Ickler, 23, who was driving the same No. 51 Billy Ballew Motorsports Toyota that Busch has driven to victory twice this year.



Keeping Pace

Motorsports correspondent Doug Pace keeps up with motorsports news and notes from around the region.