Sports: Childress dumps Skinner for 2002

Childress dumps Skinner for 2002

By JOANNE KORTH

Silly season is officially open.

The first major domino fell Monday when Richard Childress ended months of speculation in announcing Mike Skinner will not drive the No. 31 Chevrolet next season.

Winless in his fifth season in Winston Cup racing, Skinner is free to look for another ride while finishing 2001 with the RCR team.

"Mike is one of the most talented drivers out there but, for some reason, we haven't been able to win," Childress said. "We've had some great runs, but this sport is about winning.

"I don't want to hold his career back or this race team's, so I think it's best that we make this move now to give Mike as much time as possible to put a deal together with another team."

Childress has not hired a new driver, but among the possibilities is Robby Gordon, who recently served as a substitute driver for four races when Skinner was injured.

Skinner began his career at RCR in 1995, winning the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series that year and 16 races in two seasons before moving to Winston Cup in 1997 and winning Rookie of the Year.

He has 10 top-five and 38 top-10 finishes in 153 Winston Cup starts with RCR and won NASCAR exhibition races in Japan in 1997 and 1998.

"It's just been a lot of things that have kept us from getting the moon and the stars lined up," Skinner said. "But if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be.

"We'll move on down the road and turn this into a positive. ... I'm still planning on running up front and I'm going to make somebody a good race car driver."

READY TO WIN: Michael Schumacher clinched his second consecutive Formula One title and gave Ferrari its third consecutive manufacturer's title with his win in the Hungarian Grand Prix. In Italy, fans were ready.

Schumacher and team members were greeted at the Bologna airport Monday by more than 100 fans decked out in Ferrari's trademark red, and Italian President Carlo Azegli Ciampi, European Commission President Romano Prodi and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi also made congratulatory calls.

CELEBRATION, PART II: Dodge, which returned to Winston Cup racing after a 17-year absence, celebrated its first victory since 1977 with a party Monday at DaimlerChrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich. Sterling Marlin won the rain-shortened Pepsi 400 Sunday at Michigan.

PULLING AWAY: It would take an uncharacteristic collapse to derail Jeff Gordon's drive to the Winston Cup points championship. He leads Ricky Rudd by 298 points with 13 races left.

"You've just got to make sure that you keep coming home on the lead lap with as few problems as possible," Gordon said. "And I've been saying that the guy who has the least amount of problems is going to be the guy who's going to win this thing."

STUMPING: Johnny Benson's No. 10 was the only Pontiac among 17 cars in the Pepsi 400 that finished on the lead lap, proof in his opinion that a rule change favorable to the Grand Prix is in order. -- Information from other news organizations was used in this report.