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Cook Rallies to Tenth in Michigan
Terry Cook fought a loose condition throughout the middle stages of Saturday’s Cool City Customs 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Michigan International Speedway but a late-race pit stop allowed the No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota to charge from 19th to a tenth-place finish over the final four laps.Cook was on the move early in the race as he ran from his 14th starting position to the top five as the front of the field cycled through a round of green flag stops. Cook led lap 38 before diving onto pit road for his stop. That is where his problems began.
“The guys pulled off a great stop and got us back out right about where we were running before the pit stops started,” Cook said. “We made a chassis adjustment and the truck just started getting looser and looser afterward. It was like it was bouncing into the corners. I felt like I was sideways more than I wasn’t throughout the rest of the race.”
Cook was hovering just outside the top ten when the final caution of the race waved on lap 94. A last-second call by crew chief John Quinn brought Cook down pit road to make another adjustment. The truck handled better but it was a last-lap spin that mixed everything up just enough for Cook to pick up a couple of spots coming to the flag.
“I don’t know how we all didn’t wreck down there,” Cook said. “I think we were five wide trying to scramble through that mess. We took the white flag in 12th and took the checkered in tenth so that’s good. But we’re puzzled why we had a truck that was great when the race started and it ended up being a handful after the first stop.”
With his fifth top-ten finish in ten starts so far in 2008, Cook unofficially maintains the ninth position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings. He is just one point behind Jack Sprague for eighth and 58 points behind fifth-place Rick Crawford.
Next up for Cook and the No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota is the Milwaukee 200 at The Milwaukee Mile. Cook was the 2002 winner of the event at the track where he made his series debut in 1996 and the Wyler Racing Team made its competitive debut in 2005. SPEED will have the live broadcast at 8:30 P.M. Eastern and MRN Radio will have the live radio call on selected affiliates nationwide and on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128.