Cook Looking To Move Up One Spot In Atlanta NCTS Race This Weekend

Just .206 of a second separated Terry Cook from Victory Lane last October in the 2006 Easy Care Vehicle Service Contracts 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. This weekend, Cook hopes to turn that runner-up finish into a winning effort when the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series takes to the 1.5-mile Atlanta oval for the 2007 version of the event.

“We came up less than a truck-length of winning the race last year,” said Cook, who came home second inches behind winner Rick Crawford. “That was a great race and I really thought we could win it. I feel like the way we have been running lately, we can win this time around too.”

Cook’s HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra was also in a position to win the most recent event on the 2007 NCTS tour leading 108 of the 200 circuits in the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway last weekend. The veteran driver put the No. 59 Harris Trucking entry on the point on Lap 27 and didn’t give it up until a trio of bumping incidents late in the event saddled him with a wrecked race truck and 29th-place finish.

“In the last third of the race, we had people driving all over us and moving us out of the way,” said Cook of the Martinsville event. “You wind up showing your displeasure with your fellow competitors, but really, that’s the type of racing that Martinsville Speedway provides. There’s not much you can do about it. That’s just the way it is there.”

Cook is hoping his racing luck will return to form this weekend at Atlanta, a place he thoroughly enjoys competing at.

“Atlanta is a track you really have to race smart at,” said Cook. “You can say that about any track, but that’s really true at Atlanta. It’s extremely fast with multiple grooves. You can race everywhere from the bottom of the apron to the top of the wall. It has about eight different grooves. You just pick the one you want to race on.

“When you’re going that fast and you have that many grooves, you really have to be aware of your surroundings,” Cook continued. “You can drive into the corner and you will be three- or four-wide. You have to understand who you are racing with and what potential problems could arise from that. You just have to keep yourself out of harm’s way and be in the Top-10 with about 30 laps to go. If you can be in the Top-5 with 10 to 15 laps to go, you have a shot at winning.”

Cook knows a little bit about finishing strong at Atlanta. In his six career Truck Series starts at the track, he’s completed an amazing 99.7 percent of the laps (791 of 793). In the Truck Series race at Atlanta this earlier this season, that determination to finish all the laps was evident when Cook and his HT Motorsports team overcame a crash midway through the event to complete the race on the lead lap.

“To even finish the March race at Atlanta with as much damage as we had on our race truck was really something,” said Cook. “We blew a right front tire and got into the wall. The truck was torn up pretty bad. The right front was caved in and half the body was missing. Despite all that, we were able to patch the truck up and drive up to a 17th-place finish. That kind of got things rolling with our program this year and lately – the last five or six races – we’ve shown that we’re a contender to run in the Top-10 and the Top-5. We’ll be looking to do that at Atlanta this weekend. It’s about time we get a finish to reflect the kind of team and effort we’ve been putting out lately.”

Cook and his HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra will take to the green flag in the Easy Care Vehicle Service Contract 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway Saturday, October 27 at 1 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.