Cook Rallies to 11th in Indianapolis

Terry Cook was on target for a top-five run in the Power Stroke Diesel 200 at O’Reilly Raceway Park but a spin on lap 188 after contact from behind left him sitting in 18th with just 10 laps to race. Cook pitted for fresh tires and dashed back towards the front, picking up seven spots in the final nine laps and rallying to an eleventh-place finish in the No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota.

“We were just a matter of inches from clearing that spin down there,” Cook said. “I had the 30 (Todd Bodine) cleared but we got a little tap from the 2 (Jack Sprague). We were all trying to get slowed down and Jack just couldn’t get it slowed down in time. It wasn’t anything anyone did on purpose but it put a damper on our night. I really thought we were going to get a top five here tonight. If that accident with the 30 and the 88 (Matt Crafton) didn’t happen I was a lap away from driving around the outside and getting them behind me.”

As it was, Cook was confident in his Wyler Racing ride after the incident.

“I told the guys on that caution for our spin we were going to have a top-five finish had that not happened,” Cook said. “I know we had just a few laps to race and we were 18th but I had a pretty good feeling we could get back to the top ten. I guaranteed we’d get there and we almost did. I was on the outside of Mike Skinner coming turn four to the checkered flag and he started to come up. He just came down and thanked me for not turning him into the wall. I didn’t want to cause a big wreck there coming to the line, but we’ll take eleventh and go on to Nashville. We know we had a truck that was a lot better than that so we’re not happy with the result, but we’re happy with the way we performed here tonight.”

With his eleventh-place finish Cook dropped one spot in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings. He now sits in eighth, 21 points behind Erik Darnell in seventh and just 89 points behind Mike Skinner in fifth.

Next up for Cook and the No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota is the Toyota Tundra Nashville 200 at the Nashville Superspeedway on Saturday August 9. Round 15 of the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season will be televised live on SPEED starting at 7:30 P.M. Eastern. The race will also be carried live on select affiliates of MRN Radio and on Sirius NASCAR Radio Channel 128.