Cook Looking To Give HT Motorsports 'Home Track' Win At Martinsville

Terry Cook has been fighting to give HT Motorsports it’s first-ever NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win since joining the team at the start of the 2007 season. Coming off a series of solid runs, the veteran driver will have a special incentive to earn the team a victory this weekend when the division invades Martinsville Speedway for the Kroger 200.

“Martinsville is the home track for HT Motorsports,” Cook (right) stated. “Our shop is located only 15 minutes or so from there. We’ll be looking to win this weekend, there’s no doubt about that. We’ve really picked up our program the last couple of months and we’ve been running with the leaders at every race lately. It would be very cool for a Virginia team to win at a historic Virginia racetrack like Martinsville this weekend.”

Cook is coming off of a deceiving 28th-place finish in the most recent NCTS event at Talladega two weeks ago. A victim of the Talladega ‘Big One’ accident with less than 20 laps to go, Cook was in the middle of the lead pack and in position for a top finish or possible win prior to the accident that left his No. 59 Toyota Tundra a mangled mess. Earlier this year at Martinsville,

Cook has bad luck of another kind starting 10th and finishing 15th in the Kroger 250.

“We had a fast truck in the spring at Martinsville (below left),” said Cook. “Along with a couple of other trucks, we wound up getting a pit road penalty for apparently running the paddle person at the end of pit road. We contested it, but ruling stood. It’s unfortunate that happened because that put us a lap down and we had to overcome that. We still got a decent finish, but it was nowhere near what we had hoped for going into that race.”

Cook’s Harris Trucking Toyota – truck No. 11 in the HT Motorsports stable - will be primed and ready for this weekend’s Martinsville event. Cook, a Sylvania, OH native, owns five Top-10 finishes in 14 career Truck Series races at the .526-mile oval and thinks he knows what it will take to grab the checkered flag this time around.

“The key will be to qualify well and to stay up front all day long because Martinsville is all about track position,” said Cook. “You have to be aggressive, but you can’t be too aggressive. This race is 50 laps shorter than the spring race at Martinsville. A lot of guys are talking about doing this race without pitting. You can make it on fuel if you have enough caution flags, but that’s a real gamble.

“If you come in early, you have to run the last 150-170 laps on the same set of tires, so you have to careful not to eat up your tires, burn up your brakes and conserve enough fuel to get to the finish,” Cook added. “Everyone will go there with a different strategy in mind. Our strategy will be to win and we’ll be doing everything we can to make that happen.”

Cook and his HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra (right) 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.