From the drop of the green flag Mike Skinner clearly had one of the fastest trucks in the field. After starting from the outside of the front row, Skinner made a strong move on pole-sitter Kyle Busch through turns three and four to lead the first lap.

Varying pit strategies mired Skinner seventh on the first restart of the day on Lap 33. With six trucks ahead of him with fuel only, Skinner had a fast truck and was looking to move forward. As teammate Tyler Malsam was turned around behind him on Lap 34, Skinner was run in the grass by the No. 13 of Johnny Sauter. Skinner lost control of his No. 5 Toyota and had one of the most spectacular crashes in recent Truck Series history.

As Skinner slid through the frontstretch grass the veteran driver did all he could to regain control of his vehicle. The truck slid back across the track and hit the outside wall at the second dog-leg head on as just as T.J. Bell was looking to drive into the corner. Instead, Bell drove straight into the back end of Skinner, sending the No. 5 Toyota pirouetting in the air and landing on its side. Skinner slid down the track in a shower of sparks and turned back on his wheels as the car came to a stop.

Thankfully, Skinner was able to radio the crew simply saying, “I’m okay,” then climbed from the wrecked machine and waved to the crowd.

“There was so much stuff going on, TJ thought it was his fault. He was just a victim,” Skinner said following the incident. “We had a really, really fast Tundra tonight. On the pit stop some slower trucks got in front of us and I went to pass an idiot and he portrayed to be an idiot and run me down in the grass. It was really, really a stupid rookie move by a veteran, but you’re going to have that.

“This is the only truck, we’ve been running this truck everywhere, and it won’t ever run again – it’s killed. I’m okay,” the veteran driver assured everyone.

“I’ve been a crash dummy for years,” Skinner joked. “I hit probably – I don’t know what the G’s were but I’m sure it was big. I’m sure that I’ve hit less than this and left in a helicopter before.”

“I’m just happy everyone’s okay right here,” an emotional TJ Bell said after leaving the Infield Care Center. “I’m so proud of NASCAR for everything they’ve done to make this sport so much safer. You know, Mike being safe after that big of a hit I’m just real excited about that.

“I had to watch the replay to see what happened,” Bell added. “You don’t know what to do, and honestly I was more worried about Mike than anything. I knew we were tore up and weren’t getting back out there, I was just hopping Mike was okay after the hit he took.”

NASCAR was forced to throw the Red Flag as crews went to work repairing the SAFER barrier and removing Skinner’s wrecked machine. Thanks to the wonderful safety developments implemented by NASCAR, Skinner and Bell were able to walk away from one of the scariest incidents in recent memory.

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