Skinner signs three-year deal with MMM

Skinner, who has yet to win a Winston Cup event, has signed a three-year deal with the team. Although he won the two demonstration races held in Japan in 1997 and 1998, that elusive first points race victory means he has a career best finish of second at Talladega in 2000.

The 44-year-old Californian will undergo extensive knee surgery on Wednesday in the aftermath of an injury at Chicagoland Speedway in July. He was dropped from his drive in the #31 Richard Childress Racing Chevy to give him time to get his injury sorted out.

"We've been working on this for a while," said Skinner. "I think it's a great opportunity for me to go with an owner like Larry McClure who's had so much success in the past with Daytona 500 victories. The long-term relationship with the sponsor is really impressive to me. We're looking forward to building a good rapport with them and building a great relationship and having a lot of fun and go racing."

Skinner is grateful that his former team boss Childress has allowed him the opportunity to sit-out the rest of the season and concentrate on getting fit for 2002. Robby Gordon has taken over his seat at RCR for the rest of the season.

"I can't thank Richard Childress enough for giving me the opportunity to go get healthy," said Skinner. "Richard and Larry [McLure] are friends. They talked about me. Richard I think is one of the people who recommended me to Larry in the event we didn't stay together. As a car owner, I think he wanted me to stay in [the #31 car] until at least Talladega. As a friend, he wanted me to get out of the race car and go get my knee operated on so I could be productive for Larry and the whole Kodak team."

Team boss McLure, who has signed youngster Bobby Hamilton Jr as a stop-gap measure for the majority of the rest of the year after parting company with Kevin Lepage earlier this week, said Skinner was the man he has been after all along.

"Mike was what I think we needed for this race team," said McLure. "We needed to get back to where we were. We've danced around and had two different drivers in the car this year. I think both of them have skill and are good race car drivers but to get someone like Mike Skinner that is always a threat to win, is a competitor and has a lot of desire. We're excited to have him.

"As far as Kevin [Lepage] is concerned, when I hired Kevin, it wasn't a permanent position at that time, so we just kind of came up with an agreement to last as long as we wanted it to last. Then we decided that we'd go on and look at someone else for the remainder of the season."

McLure added that Skinner will be around the team for the remainder of the campaign.

"Mike is going to have his leg operated on and he's going to come to a couple of races and help us maybe guide Bobby Hamilton Jr's career in the right path," he added. "We're not sure who will drive #4 car at Martinsville. We've contacted a couple of other drivers to see if they could race there. I don't think that Bobby Hamilton will be the guy who runs for us at Martinsville. We're looking at somebody else."