ORP Success All Relative For NASCAR Truck Series Driver Terry Cook

Like many drivers, Terry Cook found getting around the .686-mile O’Reilly Raceway Park oval a bit tricky early in his career. That is, until he found out the fast way around was all relative.

“My relatives - the East family – have raced for years at O’Reilly Raceway Park in the USAC Midget, Sprint and Silver Crown cars and my father-in-law, Bob East, had a lot to do with me getting better at there,” said Cook (right), who will steer the No. 59 HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra in the Power Stroke Diesel 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Clermont, IN track this Friday evening.

“Bob had a friend who owned a late model stock car and they allowed me to take it out to ORP one night and make a tremendous amount of laps during an open test. Even though I had raced there in a Craftsman Truck several times before that, being able to drive around there and feel the line really helped me learn more about the racetrack. We went back to ORP a month later and I got my first Top-5 in a Truck Series race and the next year we won there from the pole. I really owe a lot of that to Bob (left) because he got me the seat time and really helped me learn the racetrack. He’s been very instrumental in my success there.”

The stats bear Cook out.

In his first four Truck Series starts at ORP, the Sylvania, OH native posted a 22nd-place finishing average with a 17th-place effort in the 1999 NCTS event as his best effort. In the six NCTS events since the tutorial session with East (left), Cook has posted a seventh-place finishing average – including four Top-10s and two pole positions – and a win in the 2002 ORP Truck Series classic,

According to the veteran driver – who will take a NCTS record 235 consecutive starts into this weekend’s ORP event - mastering the famed ORP ‘slide job’ has been a big part of his recent success.

“The midgets and sprint cars made the ‘slide job’ famous on the old televised Thursday Night Thunder USAC races,” said Cook, who finished sixth in last year’s ORP 200-lap Truck Series event. “Guys would drive in the corner under someone, staying in the throttle a lot longer, and then slide up in front of the other car. It’s a timing move. You can’t do it consistently throughout the race and expect to get away with it all the time. You have to know who you are racing. You may have to follow someone for a couple of laps to see how he is driving before you try it. There are some guys you are not going to be able to do that to. It’s kind of like a ‘Hail Mary’ - either a wrecker or a checker. When you do make the slide job, you’re committed. If you do it and you don’t make it, you’re in the fence. You just hope the guy you’re passing is going to give you enough racing room to make it stick.”

After a string of solid finishes that boosted him to 11th in the 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season standings, Cook has experienced a ‘slide job’ of different proportions in recent weeks with a 29th-place finish at Memphis (broken sway bar) and a 31st-place effort at Kentucky (accident).

Now 14th in the division title chase but still just within 48 points striking distance of the Top-10, Cook and his No. 59 HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra (left)have their sites set on rebounding at ORP this weekend.

“ORP is one of the top short-tracks in the country and it produces great side-by-side racing,” said Cook, who is sixth all-time in career earnings and needs just $7,793 in winnings at ORP this weekend to eclipse the $3.5 million career earnings mark. “Typically, flat short tracks don’t do that, but ORP is an exception. You really race that racetrack. I’ve been very fortunate to win there in the past and run well there the last five or six races. We’ll be looking to continue that success when we go back there this time around.”

Cook’s HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra will take the green flag in the Power Stroke Diesel 200 at O’Reilly Raceway Park this Friday, July 27, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The event will be telecast live on The SPEED Channel and will be broadcast worldwide on Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio.

For more information about Terry Cook and HT Motorsports, please log on to www.terrycook.com and www.htmotorsports.com.