Madison, IL (Sports Network) - Mike Skinner won his second straight Camping World Truck Series race in the most unlikely circumstances in Saturday's Copart 200 at Gateway International Raceway.
Matt Crafton spoiled Ron Hornaday Jr.'s opportunity for a dominating victory when Crafton spun out Hornaday on a restart in the closing laps. Hornaday hit the wall and slid down the track, with Jason Young slamming into the back of his truck.
Crafton took the lead, but NASCAR penalized him for rough driving. That allowed Skinner to take the lead for the first time. Skinner then held off Johnny Sauter in a green-white-finish for his third victory of the season and the 28th of his Truck Series career. He won last weekend's inaugural race at Iowa.
"I have to applaud NASCAR," Skinner said in regards to Crafton's penalty. "Sometime we got to stop being able to wreck the leader to win these races. Pretty soon you're just going to have the last 20 laps just going to be the lap this guy wrecking the next guy. I chose not to wreck Ron twice this year when I had the opportunity, and today I think it came back and paid dividends."
Skinner won last weekend's inaugural race at Iowa in dominating fashion, leading all but 20 of the 200 laps.
"We had a horrible pit stop today, which put us back there," he added. "Our truck was good. I don't think it was as good as Ron's, but it was better than Matt's and probably as good as [Todd Bodine's]. I felt like we had a second- place truck anyway."
Hornaday led 116 of 162 laps and attempted to become the first driver to win a truck race at Gateway in consecutive years. The three-time series champion finished 17th and saw his lead over Crafton cut to 197 points.
"It was a slow start, and I guess he wanted to move to the outside and dump me," Hornaday said. "I saw him do it to [Bodine] earlier, so it's a shame. It's just flat stupidity.
Just before Hornaday's incident, Crafton also tapped Bodine from behind on a restart. Bodine, who was running second at the time, slid up the track and collected pole sitter Colin Braun and Rick Crawford.
"How stupid do you have to be to turn somebody going into the corner with eight laps to go," Bodine said. "There is no cure for stupid. This kid has done this crap his whole career."
Crafton managed to rally back from his penalty for a sixth-place finish.
"I got two really good restarts, and I got into Bodine when he ran me down, and I just stopped because I didn't think I was going to make the corner," Crafton said. "I hated it. That's the last thing you do is wreck somebody, but what do you do just let off and let those guys have the spot."
Sauter finished second, while Brain Scott, Aric Almirola and Tayler Malsam completed the top-five.
Skinner became the 11th different winner in 12 truck races at Gateway.