Las Vegas Tire Gamble Comes Up A Winner For Cook, HT Motorsports

Terry Cook knew taking only two tires with just over 50 laps to go in the Smith’s 350 would be a gamble, but if he was going to do it, what better place could he roll the dice and hope for the best than Las Vegas?

“We did gamble a little bit – it wasn’t that big of a stretch to take two tires – but we made the right call,” said Cook after wheeling his No. 59 HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra to a fourth-place finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. “That gamble, along with a great race truck, got us our best finish of the year. Once we got in clean air, we were just as fast as the Top-3 trucks in front of us. We turned our fastest laps of the race in the final 50 laps and drove away from anyone who was trying to catch us. At the end of the race, the left front tire was down to the cords, so we were pretty lucky the race wasn’t three or four laps longer because we wouldn’t have made it. This was one time we gambled and won."

Cook started the 146-lap event on the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval from the 18th position and immediately gained four spots in the first 10 laps. After rolling up to just outside the Top 10, a pit stop put Cook back in the field in 20th where he again started his march to the front. Despite solid lap times, Cook was unable to break into the Top 10 as race traffic and dirty air slowed his progress.

“Our truck didn’t qualify very well speed-wise, but I knew we were fast,” said Cook, who timed in at an average speed of 171.690 miles per hour (31.452 seconds). “The truck didn’t have a lot of raw speed for a two-lap run, but I knew it would have the ability to maintain a fast speed over a long run. But any track where aerodynamics are a big factor, you have to have track position. Despite having a great truck, we just couldn’t get that.”

Cook’s opportunity to move through the field came on Lap 87 when Brendan Gaughan pounded the Turn 4 wall. An extended caution period to repair the safer barrier ensued allowing Cook and HT Motorsports crew chief Danny Rollins (below left) the opportunity to plan their late race strategy.

“Danny, the team and I have been working together since January and you know you are starting to think a lot alike when I’m already thinking about taking two tires and so is Danny,” said Cook. “When he can read my mind and I can read his, you know we are on the same page. Fortunately, we had a long caution and a couple of extra laps to rationalize the decision to be made. We talked about it, but I left it up to Danny and he made the call to take two tires. It was definitely the call of the race.”

The two-tire stop put Cook in fourth place on the restart and he, along with the rest of the leaders, made it a four-truck breakaway leaving the rest of the field in their dust. At the checkered flag, Cook was more than 15 truck lengths in front of his near pursuer in scoring his first Top-5 finish of the 2007 NCTS season.

“We have three brand new race trucks that we are racing right now,” said Cook, who earned $16,200 and 160 championship points for the top effort. “We’re pretty excited about where our race program is going. The effort has been there all year, it’s no different now than when we started the year at Daytona. It’s just been a culmination of things. Jim Harris has given us everything we need to move this program forward and Danny Rollins and the guys have given a great effort.”

Cook, who is 15th in the 2007 Truck Series title chase with 2,042 markers, still has an outside chance at finishing in the Top 10 in points. To do it, the Sylvania, OH veteran knows everything would have to fall his way.

“We don’t have a lot to lose right now in terms of the season point’s race,” said Cook. “We’re not in the race for the championship. We’re going for wins and top finishes. We’re still trying to maximize all the points we can get, but we’re not in conservative mode thinking about how we might lose two points. We’re looking at gaining 20 at a time, 100 at a time. We’ve got six more races to show everyone that we are a solid, Top-10 team. If we can go to the track with a great, totally prepared vehicle like we did a Las Vegas, I think we can do that. I think we can have a great final part of the season.”

Cook will be looking for another top finish when he and his HT Motorsports Tundra take to the high-banked, 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway in the Mountain Dew 250 Saturday, October 6. The 20th of 25 NCTS events this season will take the green flag at 4 p.m. Eastern Time and will be telecast live on SPEED and broadcast worldwide on the Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio.

For more information about HT Motorsports, please log on to www.htmotorsports.com.