If you didn't know Mike Skinner was a Winston Cup driver, you'd swear he was a carpenter this season: He's been tearing down the old stuff and bringing in the new for both himself and Morgan-McClure Racing.

In other words, Skinner is rebuilding his career and the team's fortunes, both of which have fallen into disrepair in recent years. Skinner came to the No. 4 Chevrolet team looking for a new direction and jump-start to his career after being unceremoniously released last September by Richard Childress Racing.

	Mike Skinner has 10 Winston Cup top-5s and 38 top-10 finishes.

The Morgan-McClure team is in similar straits. After going through four drivers last season -- the ill-fated five-race experiment with Robby Gordon, followed by Kevin LePage, Bobby Hamilton Jr. and Rich Bickle Jr., the organization needed to inject some stability and continuity in the driver's seat.

Enter Skinner, who has been a perfect fit for the team, and vice-versa. He needs the team to regain his stature and momentum as a driver, and the team needs Skinner to get it back on the road to regular respectability week in and week out.

"I think (majority team owner Larry McClure) felt like my aggressive style and my experience could help them behind the wheel," Skinner said. "When you're putting in several drivers in a car and nobody stays in it long enough to establish that relationship, it's easy to say the motor won't run or the car won't turn or there's lots of reasons why we're not doing good. You become a professional at making excuses. I think, instead of making excuses, we need to try to find answers. That's what our goal was when we started."

Skinner's right that the team's results -- he's currently in 29th-place in the standings, with his highest finishes being a pair of 12th-place showings at Texas and Sonoma -- haven't been setting the Winston Cup world on fire. Yet, at the same time, this is a team that has the potential to be extremely dangerous in the second-half of the season, one that could break out into some major success at any time.

"It's like we're almost rebuilding the race team," Skinner said. "The Morgan-McClure team was very, very strong a few years back. They won the Daytona 500, they won several races, and then all of a sudden, went into somewhat of a slump. So, we're kind of rebuilding things. Hopefully, we can get this thing competitive again."

"Rebuilding things" extends to Skinner himself.

"Yeah, I think so," he said. "The frustrating part is I feel I'm probably a better race car driver and I'm in better physical and mental shape than I've been in in a long time, and we're having a hard time making that show up because of not being very competitive. In a sense, it is a little bit of a rebuilding period for me, as well, but then again, I'm in better shape than I've been in four or five years."

Skinner's transition from the Richard Childress-owned No. 31 team to the Morgan-McClure No. 4 team hasn't been easy. Performance and horsepower haven't matched many competitors, and Skinner is already on his second crew chief, Chris Carrier, who recently replaced Scott Eggleston, who left the team.

"We're now basically starting over again, we're right back where we started," Skinner said. "Man, it's frustrating. It'd be nice to have some history and make our own notes. We don't need to go off somebody else's notes, we need to make our own."

Carrier and Skinner have somewhat of a track record together, having previously teamed together in 1997 when Skinner drove an Andy Petree-owned car in the Busch Series and Carrier was the team's crew chief. As a result, there's a trust and communication network already established, which should continue to make the transition of Carrier being in charge be even more easier.

"I think Mike and I have made a lot of progress individually, together and with the team," Carrier said. "I think there's still a lot of progress to be made, and I just can't wait for the rest of the year to come on. I know we're going to have some productive races, and we're still looking at winning a couple of races before this season is over.

"If you look at it on paper, a lot of people would say we're having a bad year. But in the back of our minds, we know we're going forward. We see it every week, we know it."

Skinner knows it, too. While he hasn't been very vocal or seen at the front of the pack much this season, he's always a threat lurking around the next corner. A driver who has yet to win a Winston Cup event in his career like Skinner can be more of a threat on the racetrack than guys like Jeff Gordon or Dale Jarrett, simply because he's so hungry for that first win and will potentially show a bit more aggressiveness than his counterparts.

"Mike's got a lot to bring to the table," Carrier said. "He's one of those guys where, somewhere along the line, he missed the things that he really deserves, as far as winning races and success. … We all have a lot to prove, and I think we're on the verge of proving that.

"He's got to be close to the top of the list (of hard-luck drivers). … I think Mike still has a lot of time, not only this season, but a lot of time in his career to turn that around and win some races. Our goal this year is to win a couple of races this year. I think by the end of the year, we can get to that point."

Skinner was inaugural NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champ, winning in 1995. But that's all he's won since then. Since joining the Winston Cup circuit, he's collected 10 top-5s and 38 top-10 finishes, but has yet to take the checkered flag and visit Victory Lane.

Yet, he continues to carry the same stigma he had at RCR: good driver, aggressive driver, non-winning driver. But that's going to change, perhaps as early as this Sunday in the New England 300 at Loudon, N.H., if Carrier has any say in it.

"I think (Skinner getting his first Winston Cup win) would be huge," Carrier said. "I think it would be huge for all of us. All of us at the race team, we know what Mike's capabilities are. We know how good a driver he is, we know he's got a lot of experience, we know he's been there a lot, but yet he still has that bound and determined desire to win a race that some guys lose a little bit of after they've been there so long."

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