Man bites dog at Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Ron Hornaday and Mike Skinner came into the media center a while ago to talk about their battle for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

It’s a pretty good scrap, with Hornaday leading Skinner by 14 points. They’ve swapped the lead back and forth a handful of times in the past six weeks, too, and each has won four races this year.

Skinner led 246 of 253 laps in the race here earlier this year, but Hornaday has had the hot hand in the series lately.

So you’d think their fight for the championship with five races left would be a good topic for discussion, right?

Well, maybe not. The third question was about Jacques Villeneuve. The next two were about Dario Franchitti.

Between them, Villeneuve and Franchitti have run a grand total of one race in the Truck Series – Villeneuve ran at Talladedga. Hornaday and Skinner have run in 344, winning 56 times. Hornaday has won two championships and Skinner has one.

Now I understand a "man bites dog" story as good as anybody else. Open-wheel racers coming to NASCAR is the flavor of the month.

But good grief.

Skinner and Hornaday were as polite as they could be in answering the questions. But they were absolutely puzzled by the line of questioning. And rightly so.