Press Snoop: NASCAR Truck Series facts.

The latest news from around the world courtesy of Press Snoop Lynne Huntting...

MIKE SKINNER/#5 Toyota Tundra Toyota is on pole for Friday night's American Racing Wheels NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series 200 race, with a time of 40.400/178.218 mph. Skinner knocked off DAVID STARR/#75 Spears Manufacturing Chevrolet, who had been on pole. Skinner, who was twenty-ninth of the 38 contenders. DAVID REUTIMANN/#17 NTN Bearings Toyota was third. Starr was the only non-Toyota in the top five.

TODD KLUEVER/#50 Shell Rotella T Ford was the top Rookie in seventh place. Row 15 on the Starting Grid will be all female, with DEBORAH RENSHAW/No.8 Easy Care Dodge and KELLY SUTTON/#02 Copaxone Chevrolet.

Skinner said his qualifying lap scared the hell out of him. "I was not going to lift. I had to run wide open to go faster than Starr. That was enough for me. I don't want to go through here again flat out." Skinner's plan is to lead the first lap, and then, if he can keep up with the veterans and get around the rookies, he will be fine, and have a good finish.

Skinner said he liked the format of qualifying and racing on the same day. "It's an awesome schedule." Skinner is planning on playing golf inbetween....or take his wife to the Mall. Skinner hopes the race will be boring - if he has his own way. Skinner was crashed out of the lead last week in Daytona.

Skinner extended his sympathies and condolences to the family of his race team, Bill Davis Racing. BILL DAVIS lost his 79-year old father Thursday.

Two drivers did not make the field - JASON RUDD/#31 Repair One Dodge, the 25-year old nephew of RICKY RUDE; and veteran NASCAR driver, DERRIKE COPE/#38 James Western Star Sterling Dodge. The Truck Series has the same policy as Nextel Cup and the Busch Series regarding starts. The top 30 truck teams, who attempted to start all the races last year, are guaranteed a spot on the starting grid. The other six positions are filled based on qualifying time and/or Owner points. This weekend WAYNE EDWARDS/#24 Mighty Motorsports Chevrolet will start thirty-fifth in the race based on points. Otherwise, he would not have raced as he was thirty-seventh fastest of 38 qualifiers for the 36-Truck field.

This year the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is celebrating its tenth year, and the slogan is "Ten Years Tough." The series was conceived in 1993 by four off-road team owners/racers, DICK LANDFIELD, JIMMY SMITH, JIM VENABLE, and FRANK 'SCOOP' VESSELS. They all raced pickup trucks in off-roading, and wanted a bigger, better audience for trucks. They were mostly racing with SCORE which puts on the Baja 500 and the Baja 1000 off road endurance races in Mexico. The quartet realized the idea was bigger than they had imagined, and was better served by having the trucks run with NASCAR and took the idea to them.

The NASCAR series was announced in May 1994 at what was then called Sears Point Raceway, which was hosting a NASCAR Winston Cup race. BRIAN FRANCE made the announcement, and the first of four exhibition races was held in July at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield. There were six trucks, five Fords and one Chevrolet. The other three exhibitions were at Portland Speedway, Saugus Speedway and Tucson Raceway Park. This was followed by four Winter Heat races at TRP, and the first full season was 1995.

The prototype truck was a Ford, built and tested by GARY COLLINS, whose family owns Mesa Marin Raceway. The first full season there were three manufacturers represented, Chevrolet, Dodge and Ford. Chevy and Ford had manufacturer and factory support, but it wasn't until the second year that Dodge provided support to its teams. Toyota joined the Truck Series in 2004, after years of speculation and preparation. Now there's talk, just idle talk, that Nissan is the next manufacturer to race Trucks.

Smith is the only remaining founding father of the four still involved with the Truck Series. He owns a two-truck team and is involved with the Nextel Cup Series by way of his co-ownership of ROBBY GORDON's team. The two have been close since early Baja days and Smith still runs the Baja races with Gordon, the last time being last June's Baja 500. Smith attends 95 percent of the Truck races. Smith owns Ultra Sports, which is not only involved in motorsports but professional Bull Riding as well, via the ASE sponsorship involved with both sports.

Only two people have been at every single Truck race since 1995 - Series Manager of Communications, OWEN A. KEARNS, Jr and team member, CHRIS SHOWALTER. Kearns is a career NASCAR employee, starting in 1983. He has been the Truck Series Manager of Communications since the very beginning. Kearns missed two of the four exhibitions, but none since then, and it's a running joke between Kearns and Showalter who will blink first and miss a race.

Showalter started out at age 20 crewing for Liberty Motorsports as the shock guy, who ran BUTCH MILLER, who had the closest ever finish in a Truck race at Colorado National Speedway July 1995, edging Skinner by 0.001 second. Since 2000, Showalter has been with Xpress Motorsports and was the Crew Chief for TRAVIS KVAPIL when Rookie Kvapil won the 2003 Truck Championship as the Rookie of the Year. Showalter is now the Crew Chief for JACK SPRAGUE, the only three-time Truck Series Champion and winner of the most Bud pole positions - 26.

Sprague is one of three original drivers who are driving now/again with the series. All moved up from the series into Busch and Cup before returning to a series in which they both excel and have fun. Sprague started racing with BRUCE GRIFFIN in 1995 and did not run any of the Winter Heat races.

RON HORNADAY started the winter of 1995 running the four Winter Heat races with WAYNE SPEARS, the only other Truck owner besides Smith, who has been with the series since the beginning. Hornaday caught the eye of TERESA EARNHARDT and soon Hornaday was racing for DALE EARNHARDT. Hornaday estimates he has run more than 120 Truck races, and he holds the record for the most Truck victories - 26. He won the hundredth race and $100,000. The Series is coming up on Race 250 this June at Dover International Speedway.

MIKE SKINNER also started with the Winter Heat races, which preceded the first full season. He raced with Richard Childress Racing for five years, and has run 81 Truck races.

Since Hornaday, Skinner and Sprague left the series, the record for the all-time most Truck stars is held by RICK CRAWFORD/#14 Circle Bar Ford, who starts Race 200 this weekend. To celebrate he has a special paint scheme. Crawford may also hold the record for the longest sponsor relationship - 14 years, in a ten year old series. Crawford has been sponsored by TOM MITCHELL and Circle Bar Truck Corral since he ran in the NASCAR All Pro Series before graduating to the Truck Series. Crawford said Mitchell is very happy in the Truck Series and has unfinished business there - to win the championship. Until then, he has no plans to move up and out, despite offers within and without the Truck Series.

BOB KESELOWSKI started out with the first Truck season as a driver and has segued into an ownership role and now his son BRAD is racing with the series. Keselowski has also run TERRY COOK, FRANK KIMMEL, DEBORAH RENSHAW and DENNIS SETZER

The only other team owner who was at the first race who is still involved with the series, albeit on a strictly partial basis, is KEN SCHRADER, who races #49 Schwans Home Service Dodge in Nextel Cup. He runs Truck as an owner/driver and runs one or more races each year. He won the third race in April 1995 at Saugus Speedway, where actor JAMES GARNER was the Grand Marshal.

KEVIN HARVICK started racing Trucks in 1995 with his own team and raced sporadically until 1998 when he was hired Spears-both were from Bakersfield CA. Harvick moved to the Busch Series in 2000 where he was Rookie of the Year, and was on his way up in Busch the following year when he was tapped by his DEI team to replace the late DALE EARNHARDT.

WAYNE AUTON, Craftsman Truck Series Director, has been with the Series since the Milwaukee race halfway through the first year, replacing JOHN COVAN, who retired due to ill health.

JACK ROUSH joined the Truck Series in 1997, running a partial season, with a variety of his Winston Cup drivers including TODD BODINE, JEFF BURTON and TED MUSGRAVE. Since then Roush Racing has run a two-truck team, and won the Truck Championship in 2000 with GREG BIFFLE.

Starr, who will start on the front row for Friday night's Truck race, used to be on the outside looking in. I remember meeting him years ago at I-70 Speedway, a short track no longer on the Truck schedule. Starr was just a kid, hanging on the fence, talking with FREDDIE FRYAR, Crew Chief for Roush Racing at the time. Starr said one day he'd be racing a truck. And he did. Starr started the Truck Series in 1998, and has been racing with Spears for the past three. His owners, Wayne and Connie Spears, are sick this weekend and will miss the race.

Races with pit stops are taken for granted in NASCAR, but the Truck Series didn't institute the procedure until 1998, after much trepidation. Prior to that, there had been a mandatory competition stop for the full field.

The Truck Series often has been a testing ground for new procedures. It was the first series not to finish a race under the caution flag. It had a green-white-chequered flag rule from the beginning, and now a variation on that finish is dictated in all three of NASCAR's top tier series. The Trucks were also the first of the top three series to try out the impound procedure, where the trucks are impounded after qualifying until the race. It started in 1995 with the races at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Richmond International Raceway, because they were one-day shows, so it was always done that way. Last year three other tracks added the procedure - Bristol Motor Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Nashville. This year it will be for all races, as it will for all races in both Busch Series and Nextel Cup.

A lot of different kinds of records are being listed for the California Speedway round. Among those is that this weekend is the first time in the Truck Series that it has run back-to-back races - last week in Daytona as part of Speedweeks, and this week on the Left Coast at California Speedway. Another item of note involving California Speedway is that four of the ten fastest Craftsman Truck races have been in Fontana.

Friday's Truck race will be televised live on SPEED TV at 6pm local time. Among the 'talent' is Pit Reporter WENDY VENTURINI, who is the sister of injured racer, BILLY VENTURINI. He was injured in the Daytona ARCA race. He has been released from hospital with no paralysis and with his feeding tube removed. Venturini has been fitted for a halo, which he will wear for a couple of months. Wendy said it will be a long recovery but he will be all right.

This weekend is the first Tripleheader NASCAR race at California Speedway, and it has taxed even this large, sprawling facility. The garage area is bulging at the seams, and until after the Trucks race, there is no designated assigned Media Parking Lot.

The Trucks run quite a few Tripleheader races this season including the first three races this season, Daytona, California, and Atlanta Motor speedway, as well as Dover, Bristol, Richmond, Phoenix International Raceway, Texas Motor Speedway, and Homestead Miami Speedway. Indianapolis is sort of a Triple Header, with Trucks and Busch at IRP and Cup at nearby Indianapolis Motor Speedway - all the same weekend. Trucks also run several races with Cup.

The Trucks run many of its races at night, and often on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. They are popular with the fans and get good TV ratings. The Wednesday night Bristol races draws upwards of 70,000 fans. Trucks also run with Indy Racing League and the Champ Car World Series Powered by Ford.

This year there are thirty full-time teams running, and all the 38 Trucks which ran last weekend at Daytona are here again this weekend at Fontana, which is a first for the series.

Trucks have often been a magnet for upcoming drivers. Last year there were 17 Rookies and this year there are seven, which is more than either Busch or Cup has.

Truck racer, BRENDAN GAUGHAN of Las Vegas is the Grand Marshal for the American Race Wheels 200 Truck race, and will give the Command to Start Engines from his #77 American Racing Wheels Dodge, which starts twenty-first.

There are thirteen Chevrolets; nine each for Dodge and Toyota, which has four are in the top five, and five are in the top ten; and five Fords. The two DNQ Trucks were Dodges.