Cook A Big Fan Of Dover 'Monster Mile'

Even if Terry Cook wasn’t the driver of the No. 59 HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra, he’d still be a fan of the Dover International Speedway one-mile oval.

“Any fan would have a ball watching the race from the base of the track in the infield at Dover,” said Cook, who will compete in this Friday’s AAA Insurance 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the famed Dover ‘Monster Mile.’ “Watching the vehicles drive off into the corner there is breathtaking. That’s the way it is from the driver’s seat too. You carry a lot of speed into the entry of the corner and when you get there, it’s like the bottom of the world dropped out from under you. It’s an incredible ride and a lot of fun to watch too.”

Cook will be making his eighth Dover NCTS appearance, his best finish coming in 2005 when he powered to a third-place effort behind a pair of NASCAR Nextel Cup stars.

“We just missed the pole by a whisker that year sitting on the outside of the front row,” Cook stated. “We led some laps and wound up finishing third behind Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart that day. We had a good run and had fun racing those guys. I guess you could say we were first in class that day.”

Cook, who posted a season-best, sixth-place qualifying effort and a solid 12th-place finish in last week’s Truck Series race at Mansfield, OH, knows the key to a good finish at Dover is staying out of trouble.

“Dover is a pretty narrow track and the banking on the straights there is a lot more than in the corners at some of the tracks we race at,” said Cook, 16th in last year’s Dover NCTS clash. “When there’s a wreck there, you don’t have too many escape options because the track is narrow and you are really hustling around there. You are hauling the mail and you don’t have much time to react. It’s pretty easy to get caught up in somebody else’s mess.”

Cook, 14th in the 2007 Truck Series driver’s season championship standings heading into Dover, also noted the ever-changing demands of the track and the ability to adapt to them will also be key to success.

“Dover is a concrete track and it changes dramatically from the time we unload well into the time we race,” said Cook. “That’s because the track is constantly being used and a lot of rubber gets put down throughout the day. The teams that are able to make adjustments, those that can keep freeing their truck up because the track is getting tighter, are the teams that will do well at Dover this Friday.

“My crew chief, Danny Rollins, has run well there in the past and this year I’m going back as part of the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) team that has made all kinds of resources available to us. Because of all those things, I expect that we’re going to be one of the teams to run well at Dover this weekend.”

The AAA Insurance 200 at Dover International Speedway will take the green flag at 4:40 p.m. Friday, June 1. The event will be telecast by the SPEED Channel on a taped-delayed basis Friday at 8 p.m.

Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio will broadcast the event live as it happens worldwide.