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Receiving the Retirement Gift

15:49
47:55
191.6K views

At 15:49 in

Mike Skinner's 1995 Goodwrench NASCAR Truck: The FIRST Ever Truck Series Champion!

What happens here

Mike explains that this particular championship truck was gifted to him by Richard Childress for his retirement, having previously been kept in Childress's barn and later displayed in his museum. He recounts how his wife, Angie, repeatedly asked Richard for the truck as a retirement gift. After much persistence, and the truck eventually being replaced in Childress's museum, Richard agreed, on the condition that Mike restore it to its exact 1995-specifications, including the seat position and even the champagne stains from victory lane. Mike highlights the meticulous restoration process and the personal significance of receiving the truck.

Goal: Explain how the championship truck came into Mike Skinner's possession as a retirement gift.

Tools and materials

  • NASCAR Craftsman Truck Chevrolet — The restored championship truck
  • Racing Photo N/A — Visual aid depicting Mike Skinner and Richard Childress with the truck

What they say

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They were They were not allowed. They are now. Or coil bind? Uh they We coil bound. Um you know, Jeff Hensley and I when I came not never we never coil bound in the three truck. When I came back in 2004 and drove for Toyota, um Jeff Hensley and I we we would coil bind the left front spring and we wore them out in a bunch of places and everybody started In the Cup Series they started coil binding the right front. And we were kind of we were having a lot of success doing what we were doing, but it was hurting the arrow platform so bad the thing go down straight away and the nose would be that high off the ground. And when you was on the right front it would keep it sealed up. And so we eventually had to to to go and and figure out how to do it on the right front. And we did and you know, it just um nowadays the delta the difference in the the travel from all the way down to all the way up is very little. As a matter of fact, the Goodwood truck that we built, it was about 500,000ths of an inch. These things are probably still a couple inches, but um it's big the difference in travel. We hardly had any travel at all in that thing. It was just like an Indy car. Huh. Or a Formula 1 car the way it was in the whole bottom was pan you know, all pan totally illegal for NASCAR. That's the Goodwood the special. Yeah, the special. Which that truck you might have to come back and check that out. It It might be up here. Our friend Jimmy Walker purchased year, so yeah. Yeah. And it's right next to the park where you saw those big man caves. Yeah. He's got a collection of some old stock cars and Big time multi-million dollar collection. It's crazy the cars he's got. A lot of Corvettes, a lot A lot of really historic cars and Well, pretty much all of them are restomods though. Is that the truck that was in the viral video of you doing Goodwood? Yes. That all the European people were like, "Oh my god, I can't believe a a NASCAR truck can do that." Yeah, well, that truck 10 was in one of those viral videos. Yeah, we won There's two of them. my own record four times. Yeah. Every year we We had to go go faster. the record. But the the special um took it to a new level. It was a couple seconds faster. That went 47 seconds. It was in the 47s, which is That's a good That's hauling butt up a 1.2 mile driveway. When you went up to the Cup Series in the Lowe's car, who drove this truck? Jay Sauter. Jay Sauter took my place and he had a lot of success, did good, won races, and then…

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