After 14 races, Mike Skinner’s 2007 is a season full of big numbers – four wins, seven pole positions, top 10s in all but one race, and series-leading marks by wide margins for miles-led, laps-led, races-led, best running position, average finish and driver rating as driver of the #5 Toyota Tundra from the dominant Bill Davis Racing NCTS three-team stable. But it’s that chronological number – his championship year (1995) – that is most significant. Should he win the 2007 NCTS title, Skinner would join what is perhaps NASCAR’s most exclusive club, joining Terry Labonte as the only drivers to go as long as 12 seasons between championships in any major series. Mike and Terry. That would be the list, a very short list, considering that almost 4,000 drivers have started at least one race in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, the NASCAR Busch Series, the NCTS and their preceding permutations dating back 59 seasons to the race-on-the-beach, Bowman Gray Stadium days of the late 1940’s.(Bill Davis Racing PR)(8-7-2007)
