Catching Up With Former Nascar Star Mike Skinner

There’s retirement, then there’s Mike Skinner retirement.

To say the 64-year-old (he’ll tick over to 65 in October) is living his best life may just be the understatement of the century.

The California native raced in NASCAR from 1986 to 2012. Known as the “Gun Slinger” for his straightforward nonsense approach to racing, along the way Skinner won the 1995 Truck Series title, and 28 races in that series.

In 2012 however, he decided he’d had enough.

“Oh, I was kind of stupid,” Skinner said with a laugh. “Actually, I don’t want to say I had a big ego…what happened to me is, I was a baby. I got tired of riding in the back and the rides I was getting then were good paying jobs, but they were back markers.

“I know I got a couple of buddies that’s still doing it and making a good living at it, but I just decided that I just, I didn’t want to race no more unless I had a chance to run in the top five or 10 anyway.

“And I’d had all those concussions and my doctor was saying, ‘find an exit strategy, just race once in a while’. And I said, you know what? Heck with it, I’m just going to quit.”

Wife Angie pointed out that Dale Earnhardt Jr. actually played a role in Mike stepping aside. The popular driver sat out two races in 2012 after he suffered two concussions during races. Angie said Mike leaving led to the RV lifestyle that is central to their lives now.

“We had just purchased an RV lot up in Lake Toxaway,” she said. “We loved the bus. That’s the one thing that we didn’t want to get rid of after racing.”

Mike chimed in:

“I said, ‘the airplane goes, or the bus goes’ and we love the bus. So that didn’t take much of a decision.”

The RV had become intertwined in the life in the final two years of Mike’s Truck racing.

“You were driving the bus,” Angie said to Mike. Then added: “Like (Ron) Hornaday, Todd Bodine, Steve Park, Jack Sprague, we would go on tour together, like six-week tours. We started having fun and we’re like ‘we’re not giving up the bus.”

The stories of those days on the road with the truck series drivers could probably fill an entire volume, albeit one best published after all the players are gone. Stories such as golf cart races that would end with seeing who would get kicked off a racetrack first by security.

“One night in Nashville,” Angie said. “I think Todd Bodine and Mike were racing and our bus driver at the time was on the back of the golf cart and fell off. Lindy Hornaday (wife of Truck series racer, Ron), was like ‘no more.’”

“We thought we killed him,” Mike added laughing.

“We had to put a stop to golf cart racing,” Angie said. “It wasn’t because of security, it’s because of our dumb butts.”

Mike’s fulltime NASCAR career was over not long after the golf cart racing ended. Angie recalled when Mike gave her the news. He was driving the RV to the mountains where they would later spend the weekend, and she was heading to the Motor Racing Network studios for her weekly radio show. Mike called her.

“I’ll never forget this,” she said. “Just out of nowhere, he goes, ‘Hey babe I think I’m going to quit racing’. And I’m like, ‘what?’ And he goes, ‘yeah you know, Dale, Junior’s pretty smart. He took himself out because he’s been having these concussions.’ He goes, ‘what am I doing? I’m in a back marker car. I’m committing suicide every week to qualify for these people that have, you know, cars that can really not make it unless you have a kick ass driver.

“’He goes and ‘you know what I’d like to be around to enjoy life with you and RVing.’ Like kind of what our goal was to ‘see my grandkids play football or baseball or race and whatever they do’. And he goes, ‘so I think I’m just going to do that.’”

“And I went, ‘okay, I’ll see you for wine at about seven o’clock,’” she added laughing. “He’s like ‘really? You, you’re cool with it’. I’m like, ‘yep. What kind of wine are we drinking tonight?’ He’s like, ‘all right.’ I mean, that’s literally how It happened.”

“Let me put a sidebar in here,” Mike interrupted. “I said, ‘babe, the brand on the wine; we’re going to have to back her down just a little bit. Cuz we were drinking really, really good stuff when I was working.

“And she said, no BS, goes ‘I’ll go back to work. I’ll make some money. Don’t worry about it. We’re just going to go. ‘”

For the record, they still drink the good stuff. And not only is Angie still working, but Mike has also joined her. They now do a weekly show on SiriusXM radio. The ‘Skinner Round-Up’ has proven popular with fans and kept Mike very in touch with what’s going on in NASCAR.

“If we don’t know what’s going on, we won’t have a job very long on there,” Mike said laughing. “You know Angie doesn’t even have to watch the race to be a good host; she checks social media, and she knows everything that happened. But I want to see play by play. I want to see everything that happened. I want to be able to put my own spin on what happened during the race. I watch every lap I’m able to watch.”

Mike is also a member of NASCAR’s appeals committee and has worked with the NASCAR Next program which helps young drivers move up in the sport. In addition, Mike has mentored drivers such as Cole Custer and has been called upon by teams to consult as well. So, Mike Skinner remains very much connected to the sport.

“It’s funny,” Mike said. “Because I have a lot of people come up to me and they kind of want to bad mouth it. The racing is really good and all the stuff that NASCAR’s done has been really pretty positive.”

“This new car it’s really expensive in the long run. I think it’s going to be okay, but you can’t race without lots of money period.

“But the problem that I think most of my buddies have that talk to me; they don’t like the changing of the guard. They miss Ricky Rudd and Dale Senior and all the guys that were the anchor of the sport, the personalities. And now with the young guys, they walk around with their phone in their hand and they’re texting all the time where the old guys would walk up and have a conversation with you; they didn’t have their face in their iPad or their telephone, 24 hours a day.

“So, they miss the personalities and I think that’s the biggest thing. And not that it’s a bad thing. It’s the changing of the guard. It’s the new times. I can’t say anything’s wrong with the Christopher Bells of the world, because they’re amazing race car drivers. It’s just not the same as it was back in the day.”

He does admit to a bit of, perhaps, jealousy when it comes to the new car. Part of him wishes he could have driven a Next Gen car during his time in NASCAR. In his era, it seemed to be all about points racing, which didn’t really fit with Mike’s style of trying to win every race and lead every lap.

“The cars that I drove it was more like a chest match,” he said. “You had to baby the tires until the air pressure got right and you had to really watch your P’s and Qs and be real line sensitive and don’t burn the rear tires off. And this car here, man, you get in that thing and run the crap out of it. You just run every lap as hard as you can. And that was more my style. And that’s why some of the guys that were winning all the races are having a hard time running the top five and top 10 nowadays. And some of the guys that you never heard of are up there winning races.”

These days the Skinners spend most of their time in the RV or in the mountains of North Carolina where they were when this interview was conducted. Mike still likes to keep in shape, but at 64 he can’t just hop on something like a mountain bike and ride.

“Hell no,” he quipped.

But he did try. And while it was easy to ride a bike in say the flat terrain in Florida, trying to ride in the mountains was impossible.

“You have to understand something: in my racing career, I’ve had a lot of injuries,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of arthritis, four knee surgeries, back surgery. Neck’s been broke. I’ve had everything, just a lot of ailments. And with a lot of ailments comes a lot of arthritis and a lot of different issues medically comes in into play. So, it was hard to get me to get on that bike and ride it up here in the mountains.”

Owning perhaps to his continued star power, companies still seek him, and Angie, out. One company, Buzz Bicycles in Ohio, sent them bikes last year. The battery powered bikes aren’t for kids, though kids can use them. They’re more for adults and use battery power in combination with traditional pedal power.

“The cool thing about my Buzz bike is you can throw your backpack on with your pickle ball stuff in there and ride it to the pickle ball court uphill all the way,” Mike said.

“And it’s 8:15 or 8:30 in the morning, and you just had one cup of coffee, you need a little help get up that hill,” he added laughing. “So, you put it on one or two, just get yourself a little bit of an assist. And yet you can still pedal, and you still get your heart going.

“And you know, my other bikes, I only wanted to ride them downhill. I never wanted to ride ’em up hill. With the Buzz Bike you can get as much or little exercise as you want.”

Mike still races at tracks all around the country, and the world, including Goodwood in England, and recently in Alaska, where he also won. And he can be seen cruising around a garage area on his E-bike.

“Oh my God. he loves it,” Angie said with a laugh. “He was saying, ‘man, this would’ve been cool if I would’ve had this back in the NASCAR days.’ Remember how prima donna the NASCAR drivers were, like their bus driver picks him up on their golf carts?

“Mike is like, ‘screw that I would’ve just parked my bike in the garage, jumped back on my bike and went back to my bus.’”

He may be actually starting a trend. Chase Briscoe is a current driver at Stewart-Haas Racing. He’s been seen in the garage area riding another brand of E-bike.

“It’s been a huge convenience for me at the busy racetracks,” Briscoe said. “It just opens up so many opportunities to get around quickly on my busy race days. Plus, it’s a nice way to relax before a hectic and nerve-racking race, I always feel like a quick ride helps me pre-race but with the electric help it doesn’t wear me out and I can conserve my energy for the race.”

For Mike it helps keep him in shape, just not the same sort of shape of a current NASCAR driver.

“I spent my 30 years of my life in the gym being a NASCAR driver. I don’t want to do that anymore,” he said chuckling. “I’m packing an extra 10 pounds around with me, maybe 15, give or take. And, and I love my wine, I love my life.

“I’m not going to be a professional athlete per se anymore. So, I’m not going to spend all my time in the gym. That Buzz bike gets my heart going. I get as much exercise as I feel like I want. And then I can park it.”

At the end of the day, Mike Skinner is not only still in good shape, but in a very good place in his life.

“Absolutely,” he’s quick to say. “And you know I don’t want to sound corny and cheesy, but the reason I am is because I got this beautiful woman with me I love spending time with. She’s my best friend and we find a way to make it. Even when we’re mad at each other, we find a way to shake it off and in 15 minutes, sometimes 30, we’re fine.

“My biggest complaint,” Mike adds with a grin, “It’s really dumb on my part because she works her tail off I get jealous because she’s working all the time instead of paying me all the attention so I go play golf with my buddies or we’ll do something. I ride my Buzz bike, play, pickleball, whatever. But when it’s raining, I’m like ‘what about me me me, me’ and she’s like ‘because I have to work, I have to work.’

“But I’m in a really good place in my life,” he added turning serious. “I really feel like I’m very blessed after a couple of the accidents that I had. I’m really thankful for every day because I probably shouldn’t be here.

“I just I’m really lucky guy.”