Former NASCAR champion Mike Skinner has been unveiled as The Grand Tour’s new Stig – a role which will see him lapping cars on a weekly basis around the new Ebola Drome circuit, located at RAF Wroughton.
Mike Skinner is a racing driver and NASCAR champion turned television and radio personality. He competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Dubbed the ‘gun slinger’ 59-year-old Mike Skinner began racing in 1975 after he transformed a wrecked Plymouth Road Racer into a race car and drove it at the Susanville Speedway.
During the late 1970s he won three dirt track championships, while working as a driller by day. Through the 1980s Skinner worked track side and in an engine re-build shop, racing in his spare time as he waited for his big break.
The chance came in 1996 when he was selected to race in the inaugural season of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. He won the first race and the season.
In 1997 he moved to the Cup Series where he was crowned Rookie of the Year.
In 2004 he returned to the NASCAR Truck Series and gained many more victories before his retirement in 2013 – when he was inducted into the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame.
6 comments
Mike Skinner? What a shame … the show deserves better. An overweight American with a southern redneck persona … That’s how we want to represent the United States?
Where’s Ben Collins?
they would get sued by the bbc for making the new show too similar to top gear. hence the celebrity brain crash instead of star in a reasonably priced car and conversation street instead of the news. or at least thats my best guess
I wonder why they didn’t chose Ben Collins or Tiff Needell? both are charismatic racing driver and both already have worked with Clarkson and co.
Because “Amazon insisted that the racing driver in question should be from this side of pond”: JC in 00:42:30
I was expecting “The Ben Collins” 😛