Skinner wins inaugural truck race at Iowa
Newton, IA (Sports Network) - Mike Skinner led all but 20 of the 200 laps, but had just enough fuel to hold off Aric Almirola in a four-lap shootout to the finish to win Saturday's inaugural Lucas Oil 200 Camping World Truck Series race at Iowa Speedway.
Skinner, the pole sitter, gave up the lead to Almirola shortly after the halfway point when Almirola beat him out of the pits during a caution. But Skinner reclaimed the lead following the restart. He saw his near five-second lead vanish when the seventh and last caution set up the final four-lap sprint.
After the restart, Skinner pulled away from Almirola, but his truck appeared to be running out of fuel as he wiggled it somewhat with less than three laps remaining.
"Well, the motor died coming off of [turn] four," Skinner said. "I just nursed it along, and this thing was so fast through the corner that it didn't matter what it was doing along the straightaway." Skinner captured his second victory of the season and the 27th of his Truck Series career.
He won the rain-shortened race at Kansas in April, when that event was delayed two days because of poor weather. He held the lead when NASCAR called it 35 laps short of the 167-lap distance.
"This one only took a couple of hours, the last one took three days," he said.
Almirola finished a career-best second, while Colin Braun came in third and points leader Ron Hornaday took the fourth spot. Hornaday's truck struggled during practice and qualifying sessions at Iowa.
"We didn't have the truck to beat, and Skinner definitely had the dominant truck," said Hornaday, who started 15th.
Johnny Sauter completed the top-five.
Matt Crafton finished sixth, followed by T.J.
Bell, Timothy Peters, Brian Scott and Tayler Malsam.
Hornaday stretched his lead to 225 points over Crafton with eight races remaining in the season.
09/06 00:53:20 ET
