---

NASCAR WCUP: Mike Skinner looks for another strong finish at Pocono

20 July 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

Mike Skinner earned his fourth career NASCAR Winston Cup Series pole position at last year's Pennsylvania 500 (52.801 sec., 170.451 mph).

Skinner has three top-10 finishes at Pocono, including the last two races -- ninth in this year's Pocono 500, a 10th last July and sixth in July 1997.

A comparison between Team Lowe's Racing's start/finish averages in its first and second races shows a dramatic improvement in the latter. The team averaged a 28.33 starting position and a 30.67 finishing position in Skinner 's first three Pocono 500s and 13.33 start and 15.33 finish in the first three Pennsylvania 500s.

Crew chief Larry McReynolds won the July 1995 Pennsylvania 500 with driver Dale Jarrett for Robert Yates Racing.

The No. 31 Lowe's Chevy Monte Carlo . Quotes from crew chief Larry McReynolds "The car we're running at Pocono this week is car No. 62, the same car we had there the last time. It will be in a little bit different configuration from what we ran all the races with the first part of the season, including the June Pocono race. What happens to you, and we're all guilty of it in this sport, is that we get a car that becomes our favorite car and we run it and we run it and we run it. You start not performing as good as maybe you did when you first started running it. And the reason is not because you're running any worse but because of the competition.

"The competition in this sport doesn't ever quit. Other people get better with their stuff and you kinda sit still with your car because you just about won Atlanta, you sat on the pole at Fontana, you ran really good at Lowe's Motor Speedway. You get hesitant to change anything about it so you lose ground and other people go around you. I think we maybe got guilty of a little bit of that with Car No. 62.

"It very much needed the most part of a new body just because of fatigue. So since we last ran it, which would have been the first Pocono race, it's had a complete round of sheet metal put on, everything but the greenhouse and the deck lid area."

Text provided by David Hart

Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos and art, visit The Racing Photo Museum and the Visions of Speed Art Gallery.