GM Racing Notes - Skinner crashes in Happy Hour at RIR

CHEVY ROCK & ROLL 400 AT RICHMOND INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

September 5, 2003 Page 8

 

MIKE SKINNER, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX - ON THE 5TH LAP OF THE FIRST HAPPY HOUR SESSION, SKINNER CRASHED HIS POLE-SITTING BACK-UP CAR BETWEEN TURNS 1 AND 2: "I hit oil from the No. 10 car (teammate, Johnny Benson). I don't know for sure that was the car. This is just my luck.  We're running out of cars. We've got another one coming, but we just won't practice.  The first time, I didn't know what happened. I knew what happened this time. As soon as I hit Turn 1, I knew what happened. We hit oil and spun around." (Follow-up note: According to the No. 10 team, they did not leak oil.)

 

(HOW DO YOU RECOVER, EMOTIONALLY, FROM THESE UPS AND DOWNS?) "Well, we recovered from the first one pretty good. If we can recover half that good tomorrow night, we're going to be in good shape. It's not easy to recover from something like that. The first car that we tore up today, I blame myself for. And I don't know that I made any mistakes. It just came around. But this car here, there was no question as to what happened. We were the fastest car and we went in there and hit somebody's oil."

 

(HOW MANY LAPS DID YOU GET IN THE BACK-UP CAR DURING THE FIRST PRACTICE?) "Six laps." (AND FIVE IN THE SECOND PRACTICE PLUS TWO FOR QUALIFYING, THAT'S 13 LAPS ALL DAY) "And we get three warm-up laps before we start tomorrow, are those going to count?  (OKAY, SO IN 16 LAPS, YOU GOT TWO CRASHED CARS AND A POLE)  

 

(JAY FRYE SAID THIS MORNING THAT MAYBE THIS TEAM JUST DOESN'T BELONG HERE) "Well, you know, when something like this happens, what do you do? We know what happened, we hit oil. Do you quit? No. You get another one (car) out and you put a good engine in it - hopefully they can put this engine in it - and put the same set-up under it and hopefully it'll be awesome. And, maybe we can come from the back."

 

RYAN PEMBERTON, CREW CHIEF, NO. 01 U.S. ARMY PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

Commenting on driver Mike Skinner's second crash of the day during the first post-qualifying practice session:  "When I saw Mike hit the same wall Jerry (Nadeau) hit, I thought I was dreaming. I couldn't believe what I just saw. As soon as I knew Mike was OK, I didn't know if I should cry or laugh, but I decided to laugh because I didn't want people to make fun of me crying. We're going to get another race car here (from the team's Concord, N.C. shops) and go after it tomorrow."