Talladega 'Big One' Ends Day For Cook, HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra

“Is it okay to get out now?”

That’s all Terry Cook had to say to his crew after riding out ‘the Big One’ at Talladega (AL) Superspeedway, a wreck that ended his chances of winning the Mountain Dew 250 and left his No. 59 HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra a twisted, smoking hulk of metal.

“All I know is one second we were going like heck in the lead pack and the next we were plowing up the grass in the trioval,” said Cook (right) after the incident. “It just happened so fast. There was nothing anyone could do to avoid it.”

Cook’s Tundra was in the lead draft as the field hurtled into the final stages of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on the massive 2.66-mile Alabama oval Friday. Running in the fifth position - third on the inside line behind leaders Jack Sprague and Johnny Benson - Cook was right where he wanted to be as the pack roared off of Turn 4.

“I was down in the bottom line thinking we were in pretty good shape,” said Cook. “We had worked in the middle and top grooves all day long, but the bottom was the place to be at that time of the race. We were in position to race for the win with the top trucks. Unfortunately, that never happened.”

Spague’s lead Toyota bobbled as the pack thundered off of the turn, quickly sliding to the inside before hooking right up into path of the onrushing field. Cook’s red and white Tundra t-boned Sprague’s truck in the right side, the 180-miles per hour impact destroying the front of his truck. Additional contact from behind by last week’s winner Travis Kvapil shoved him down the track more than a half mile before Cook’s mount plowed its way to a halt in the infield grass.

“I was still trying to steer it, but the whole front end was crushed down and locked up,” said Cook, who was officially credited with a 28th-place finish. “It wouldn’t turn and at that point, you’re just riding it out.”

The big crash ended the wild race for Cook, who started the event from the 12th position after posting a time of 53.635 seconds (178.540 miles per hour) in qualifying earlier in the day. At the drop of the green flag, Cook raced into the high groove only to fall to the back after getting ‘hung out’ with no drafting help.

Scored 30th on Lap 10, the Sylvania, OH driver showed his truck to be one of the fastest on the track racing back up to the eighth position by Lap 20. He would rarely leave the Top-10 after that.

“We had a great truck, it would really hunt the front,” Cook stated. “We got shuffled out of the draft a couple of times and I shuffled us out of the draft a couple of times. Each time that happened, we were able to drive right back to the front. We definitely had a truck that could win the race, a sure Top-5 piece.”

That all ended on Lap 74 when the incident off Turn 4 left Cook’s ultrafast racer in a twisted mess. Cook earned $12,950 in prize money and 79 championship points for the finish. He is still 14th in the 2007 NCTS driver title chase with five events to go – the next at Martinsville (VA) Speedway in two weeks.

“We’ll go on to Martinsville and do the best we can do,” Cook stated. “That’s home for HT Motorsports and we’ll be looking to win. We’ve really picked up our program the last couple of months and we’ve been running with the leaders at every race lately. We only have one Top-5 finish to show for it. We’ll be looking to change that at Martinsville.”

Cook and his HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra will take to the green flag in the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway Saturday, October 20 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. The event 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.