NASCAR WCUP: Mike Skinner Quotes from Winston Cup Preview
10 January 2001
Posted By Terry
Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
MIKE SKINNER (No. 31) Lowe's Chevrolet
Mike, another successful year in 2000. Were you just looking for that one trip to victory lane to get the ball rolling?
You know we don't call it a successful year. I guess there are a lot of teams behind the 31 car that would love to trade places with us. It wasn't up to our standards, it wasn't up to the year we had before and we're really, really excited and looking forward to this year. I guess you probably hear that a lot, but I think we can say that with a lot of meaning. We were fortunate enough to move up a crew chief within instead of going out and having to re-establish a relationship with somebody else to try to learn each other's personalities and then try to get competitive together, where as McGee has been there all along. It's not like I got to get used to Royce, where we know each other, we're already friends. We get along well. We've got a lot of good people on this race team and Lowe's is coming back with us, which kind of takes away a little, you know, as much as like Kenny (Wallace's) situation, they got a good race team and they will get a good sponsor and will be fine. But until that is sealed you always have that distraction and it takes focus away and I think we've had one thing or another for the last three or four years. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses, cause we won races in Winston Cup. It's just we got to totally focus on this year and not worry about winning races. Not getting caught up on we haven't won a race. We've won races. We need to finish as good as the car can finish and if we can do, we will win some races. We won't worry about winning one race; we will worry about how many races we can win. That's basically all we can do. I think we got caught up last year in points, gotta win, gotta win, and I don't know how many times I took a car that was gonna finish about 12th or 13th and finished 33rd or 40th or something. And it's just ridiculous when we sat there and knocked ourselves out of the top 10 in points trying to win a race. We're gonna try to run in the top ten and if we can do that we will win some races.
Explain how much Larry McReynolds brought to the table as crew chief and how big a loss it is to lose him and if it is a big loss as crew chief losing him.
Larry brought a ton of depth to the race team. His work ethics, his personality, his will to win, I mean there is nobody in Winston Cup that worked any harder than Larry McReynolds. And on top of that, he was a true friend and I think that's real important that you have a good friendship, a good relationship in racing and as far as have we survived, of course we survived. We survived before Larry was over there and we will survive now. Is he a loss? Yes he is a loss. I think sometimes change is good. You know a good friend of mine drives a Winston Cup car named Johnny Benson that a year or two ago wrote him off. Johnny can't run Winston Cup. Maybe he needs to go back and run the Busch cars or trucks or something. And the next thing you know he changed teams and didn't go into a big high-profile race team with zillions of dollars and they are up there. They almost won the Daytona 500, in the top 10, racing hard every weekend, qualifying well. Wow, Johnny can drive a racecar. Johnny isn't any different than he was. He's the same guy that they were saying, well this guy is washed up. He can't do this. He's not a competitive driver anymore or maybe he's above where he needs to be. I think Johnny proved that he's definitely qualified to be a Winston Cup driver and the situation is the only thing that changed. So I think change is good. I know when Larry came over there that changed the situation. Kevin (Hamlin) went to Dale (Earnhardt). Man, it was like Dale was shot out of a cannon. He started running good, top five in points, they're awesome. They won a couple races this year. Larry came over to the 31 car when we were struggling our tail off and we were the best Chevrolet the last three out of four races -- not this year but the prior year. So change sometimes is good. I think I came into this series and I tried to treat it like Craftsman Truck and I tried to put that racecar up on my shoulders and carry it around the race track and all I got to do was ride in the wrecker or ambulance back to the garage area about 14 times my rookie year. I think if I have learned anything about Winston Cup racing, it is you can't carry these racecars like we could carry the late model stock car. We could carry the truck at times. These cars here, you got a 10th place car, you better make sure you finish 10th, because if you try to win the race in Winston Cup with a 10th place car, chances are you are going to finish 40th or 35th. And I think that's what we have been very, very guilty of doing in the past. So if we got to work on something, it's getting that deal a little more equal. Our deal is top 10, 35th, 28th, 27th, well 15th, 10th. You can't do that. You got to have a little more even and that's what we are really going to focus on this year. We are going to miss Larry, but Larry is not gone. Larry is a phone call away. And we're still great friends. We talk every week and Royce is a good friend to Larry, so if Royce needs a helping hand or a shoulder or just a friend to talk to and say man, we can't get this car to turn in the middle, Larry can say hell, I couldn't either for two years. At least, they will have something in common. Hopefully, Royce will be the guy making the phone call, going "Larry, I can't believe this was the simplest thing what was wrong with this race car. Our driver was going into the corner too hard. Something like that. If we can figure that little deal out we are going to be ok.
How much information do you exchange with the No. 3 car and what have you learned from your teammate.
We've been guilty of something else as well. This whole organization and I gotta really take my hat off to Richard Childress and Bobby Hutchens, Kevin Hamlin and Royce. Those guys got together this year and go you know what, it's not us and them, it's us and us. We've got to start looking at it that way and we haven't. We would get to a place where the 31 car might be really good and the 3 car be junk and they would go ok we're gonna put your setup under there. They would put our setup under there and Dale would go I can't drive this. This is ridiculous. I don't know how in the hell he can drive this. So get it out of here. And vice versa. Put the 3 car setup under the 31 and the car wouldn't go. Could not drive it. Well, Richard's hired some engineers and they've really, now you talk about money, the more you have the more you can do and he's got some people in there that has researched what the problem is and all of them are front end points from one team to another. And the way the body was mounted, the higher the chassis was. We had so many variables in those two race cars, they might has well of not been team cars. We're trying and working really hard to bring some of that together and hopefully, we'll find it. It will show up a third of the way through the year. Hopefully the cars will be racing a little closer together and be able to share the input. Dale and I have tried to share input so many times. He'll come down and talk to me and I'll go up and talk to him. What have you got here. What you got there. We'll go through it. We'll try it on the other car. Why did it work for him. You guys just like different stuff. Then you write it off and you forget about it. Well, if that car will go for him, it will go for me. If it will go for me, it will go for him. We just got to build our race cars a little bit more to get together and I think you will see a little bit of a change in the whole RCR program this year. And we learned a lot from the No. 2 Busch car and the No. 21 Busch car. We found stuff in the 15 Albertson's car, Andy Petree Racing car that I drove. We learned some stuff with it that we transferred to both Winston Cup cars as well as Andy's cars. The more information you got in the pool the better chance you have to run good I think.
Every other driver on the Winston Cup tour is here except your teammate. What's the deal there. Second year he has missed it.
Well, I can't speak for Dale, but I know that I was on my honeymoon and out in the Caribbean and took a tender to an island and had the airplane come and get me this morning to be here. So we put a lot of effort into coming here and RCR and Lowe's has put a lot of effort in helping me with expenses to get here and I don't know. In Dale's defense I know that he had had some surgery a year or so ago and I think he was recovering from something so I don't really know where it is at this year, but I know that it was a medical reason last year I believe.
You're heading for Daytona and also for the fourth year in a row you made the Bud Shootout and I've been talking to the guys about it, they say with the race being a 70 mile race, first of all it's good to be there, secondly it's an honor, but thirdly you can pick up a lot more info from the track this year than you have in past years, and I wonder your thoughts there, sir.
It's been getting like that each year even before this rule change. It seems like you know with Winston Cup's rule changes, you know just situations, the setups on the cars from the Bud Shootout up to the 500 are getting closer and closer. I think the shock deal and the aerodynamics package, it would not surprised me one bit that if we run our car in the 500 with exactly the same four shocks and the things that we run the shootout with and you know I don't think in year's past that's been an option. I think we always run the car more aggressive. Definitely more aggressive in the Shootout, but probably the only thing that will be more aggressive and it will be in everybody's cars, is the engines. If you blow up in the shootout, as long as you don't run the rear tires down and injure your driver for a season, you know you find your limitations with the engine program. We will probably run a pretty good engine in that race, but the setup will be pretty close to the same thing we run in the 500.
I just wondered if you could touch on the Lowe's issue now that you can look at in hindsight. How is it that that became such a boiling pot and what did it take to smooth it out and calm it down and get everybody on the same page.
Man I wish I knew the answers to those questions but I really don't. I know that there were some mix-ups. I can't speak for them obviously. Their deal was with Richard Childress. My deal was with Richard Childress. So my contract is different than their contract. My deal is with Richard. Richard, when all this came up, Richard called me on the phone and said I want you to know one thing, your job is in no jeopardy. We're gonna race, we're gonna be in Daytona with or without a sponsor. We don't know what's going on. We were both out of town when all this happened. They worked it out and they have got all the issues settled apparently that was at hand and we're excited about having them back. I can't look behind, all I can do is look forward. Unfortunately Royce and I aren't sitting here like Kenny (Wallace) going "You know I know we got a great race team but what are we going to do for money when we get to June or July." There are some cars built and there are a lot of things going on, and wind tunnel times, and etc... I don't care how deep your pockets are, you need to get good sponsors in Winston Cup racing. Lowe's has been a good sponsor and hopefully we can keep things resolved and they will be with us for a long time.
Most drivers end up having some kind of personal services contracts with the sponsors. Do you have that.
Well, I will tell you what I had to do about that. I fired my manager and then married her and hired a new manager because she has not been able to cut me a deal. I can't get a personal services deal with them. I don't know if they are too tight to give us one or what the problem is, but I came off my honeymoon and came from an island today to make this appearance for Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, and hopefully my new manager can do a better job of getting a personal services deal cause I can't marry him. I already married Angela. I will just have to fire him. It was easy getting rid of her. We fired her, got her off the payroll and now she makes more money than she ever did. We'll see what happens.
Text Provided By Marie Mason
Editors Note: To view hundreds of hot racing photos
and art, visit
The Racing
Photo Museum and the
Visions
of Speed Art Gallery.