Hornaday-Skinner rivalry showed class of Trucks

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- In what is billed as Ford Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, it was the one battle that dripped with real and not manufactured drama.

It was to be the appropriate capper to a season whose highlight reel could be entitled, "Truckers Gone Wild."

• Send Joe your thoughts
• Joe's Community page

But in the end, it was disappointingly anti-climactic. In fact, it became anti-climactic long before the end.

When the left-rear wheel came off driver Mike Skinner's No. 5 Toyota on Lap 74 of the Ford 200 Friday night, all the wheels came off what Skinner had hoped was to be a championship season in the Craftsman Truck Series. The title went instead to Ron Hornaday, driver of the No. 33 Chevrolet who captured his third series championship.

Tired of the Jimmie Johnson-Jeff Gordon love-fest at the Nextel Cup level? Well, as much as it would be a better story to write if Hornaday hated Skinner and vice versa, guess what? These two are pretty tight away from the track as well.

They met the media earlier Friday afternoon, hours before the race that was to settle their remarkable and highly entertaining season-long duel. And it was, as it always seems to be when the two get together, almost like a comedy routine.

"It's been a blast and a real battle," Skinner said. "We've gotten along pretty good on the track and off the track for the most part. Even though it's gotten pretty crazy the last couple of weeks, I still think we're maintaining our normal selves."

When they are their normal selves, Skinner usually plays good cop to Hornaday's bad -- or at least Hornaday's gruffy, grumpy cop. He wasn't pleased to be told he had to meet with the media before the race, which interrupted his afternoon nap.

"I should be sleeping in my bed, but Owen Kearns [senior manager of communications for the Truck Series] said we had to come and do this thing," Hornaday grumbled. "We're paid to be racecar drivers, not media people."

Truckers through and through
Actually, they're paid to race trucks. Both Skinner and Hornaday tried going the racecar route in NASCAR and found it littered with broken dreams.

Skinner won the inaugural Truck Series championship in 1995, Hornaday the second in 1996 and another title in 1998. But then they viewed the series as little more than a springboard to greater glory.

Hornaday subsequently spent three full seasons in the Busch Series, and in 2000 was runner-up to Kevin Harvick, his current truck owner, in the rookie standings for that series. He eventually graduated to the Cup Series, competing in a total of 45 events and driving a full season for the legendary A.J. Foyt in 2001.

After running a full Truck schedule in 1999, Hornaday competed in a total of just three Truck events over the next five years -- and found that he increasingly missed the action that many folks believe most consistently provides the best racing in NASCAR's three premier series.

"This is cool. I missed the Truck Series when I went off to try some other things for a couple of years," Hornaday said. (Continued)