Terry Cook No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota Tundra O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 Preview

Terry Cook will make his 270th career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start this weekend at the Kansas Speedway. It will be his record-extending 252nd-consecutive start, dating back to the 1998 season opener at Walt Disney World Speedway. Cook has participated in all seven previous NCTS races at Kansas Speedway, picking up his sixth career victory by winning the 2006 event. Cook currently sits tenth in the NCTS championship standings, 146 points out of the lead, and just two points out of ninth. He has one top-five finish and two top-ten finishes so far in 2008.

What do you have to do to get back to Victory Lane at Kansas Speedway?  “What I will be looking for in the truck this weekend is the ability to keep it down on the bottom at both ends of the track, particularly coming off the corners. This track doesn’t have a lot of banking but it isn’t flat by any means. It is very momentum dependent just like a lot of the other 1.5-mile tracks we run. You have to be able to keep that momentum up and you have to be able to do it while keeping the truck right on the bottom of the track.”

The track seems to be almost deceptively fast. Can you feel the speed from the driver’s seat?   “This race track is still relatively new and it’s still very smooth. Don’t get me wrong, the asphalt has aged and with each winter it loses some of that newness. But the fact it is still so smooth lets you carry a lot of speed here.”

Can this track jump up and bite a driver because it lulls you into a false sense of security?   “Because the track is so smooth and so fast and because it doesn’t have the banking some of the others do, it creates a perfect storm for a driver to make a mistake. It still has enough grip that you can get to feeling a little over confident. You might feel all that grip and carry off into the corner inside someone and lose the air on the spoiler and then you’re off on a ride. A lot of times we’ll see some of the lesser experienced drivers try that coming off the corner and it will get them just about every time. We do see a lot of spins coming off the corners here.”

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How much better is it racing in April than July?  “We used to have to come to the track with all the black paint on the truck changed to white. It would get so hot that the black paint would give us vapor lock issues because it would boil the fuel. You would have to prepare the truck differently to prevent that from happening. The drivers would really struggle to keep cool too. Racing there at this time of year, we really don’t have to deal with all of those elements now.”

The ARCA cars and the Indy Cars will also be there this weekend, does the different rubber still present a problem with the NCTS on Goodyear tires?  “In all of the years we ran with the old CART series and now the Indy Car Series, we never once had any rubber compatibility issues with them. And the Indy Cars run such a different line than we do it actually helps put some rubber down for us and give us another lane to run. When ARCA ran on the old bias ply Hoosier tires, that’s when we had a lot of problems making our Goodyear rubber work on the track, particularly right after they were done running. Now that the ARCA Series has made a move to radial tires it’s not quite as big of an issue as it was in the past.”

Cook’s NASCAR Stats at Kansas Speedway: 
Cook has seven career starts at Kansas Speedway, with one win (2006), one top-five finish, and five top-ten finishes. He has completed 1155 out of 1172 possible laps (98.5%), and he has finished on the lead lap in the last six races. His average start is 12.3 and his average finish is 9.3.