Buckeye State’s Cook Finishes Fourth in Ohio 250 at Mansfield

Terry Cook parlayed strong pit strategy and a lot of patience into a solid fourth-place finish in Saturday’s Ohio 250 at Mansfield Motorsports Park. It was Cook’s second top-five finish of the season and his fourth top-ten finish in seven starts.

Cook, a native of Sylvania, Ohio, pitted on lap 38 and although he came off pit road second he was deep in the field as only a handful of front-running teams took the opportunity to stop. Cook stayed patient as the teams that stayed out eventually made their stops and others became involved in numerous on-track incidents.

By lap 75, most of the field had made their one planned stop and Cook had moved back into the top five. He moved into fourth on lap 120 and he remained there the rest of the way.

He was ten lengths back from the three-wide battle for the win on the final lap, but Cook thought he might have a chance to pick up the win.

“I saw what was going on with David (Starr), Donny Lia, and Todd (Bodine),” Cook said. “I figured three wide on the last lap wasn’t going to work at all. When they went into three I just knew something was going to happen. If it did they would go flying up the track so I kept the truck right along the inside wall. It didn’t and we ended up fourth but I was thinking we might have been able to steal one.”

Cook also gave credit to fifth-place finisher Mike Skinner. Skinner closed on Cook’s back bumper on the final lap and could have given him a hard shot – but didn’t.

“I need to say thanks to Mike, because he could have really given me a shot there and moved me up the track but he didn’t,” Cook said. “We had a pretty clean day. A few bumps here and there, but that was just typical short track racing. We knew we had to make our stop during that first round to get track position for later when the rest of the field pitted. John Quinn (crew chief) made the right call and the guys did a great job getting us out quick. From there it was up to me to not do anything that would take us off that strategy. It would have been nice to get up there and mix it up for the win, but as well as this team is performing right now I really think our time is coming.”

Cook jumped four spots in the standings to sit sixth, just 81 points out of the lead and 17 points behind Ron Hornaday in fifth.

 Next up for Cook is the AAA Insurance 200 at Dover International Speedway on Friday May 30. The 200-mile race is scheduled for a 5 P.M. Eastern start and will be televised on SPEED on a delayed basis starting at 7:30 P.M. Eastern. MRN Radio will have the live radio broadcast starting at 4:30 P.M. Eastern on select affiliates nationwide.