Terry Cook No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota Tundra
North Carolina Education Lottery 200 – News and Notes

Terry Talks about the Racing at Lowe’s: “I think you’ll see racing very similar to what we saw at Kansas . You’re going to want to hold it wide open as much as you can if not all the way around. Even with it wide open, the truck out front in clean air is going to have a huge advantage, so qualifying and pit stops are going to be even more critical than in the past. I don’t think you’ll see anyone be able to come from tenth to first in just a couple of laps. You’ll see plenty of good side-by-side racing, but it’s going to be hard to make up a lot of positions in a short period of time. You’re going to have to go out there and work for it.”

Terry on the Tapered Spacer Plate: “I know why they did it, but I am not sure they’ve gotten the results they wanted out of it. What it has done is lowered the horsepower and combined with the gear rule it’s done its job of lowering the RPMs we run. The goal is to make it so we can run these engines for two races rather than just one. But the unintended consequences of the spacer plate and the gear rule is we are now running a lot faster through the corners. We were within a few thousandths of a second of the track record at Kansas . It’s all because we are carrying so much more speed through the corners.”

Why don’t we see drafting at Lowe’s like we would Daytona if you’re running wide open? “It’s because at Daytona and Talladega the corners are so much more sweeping and high banked. You don’t rely on mechanical grip as much. At a place like Kansas and Lowe’s we rely on the air to push the truck down and generate more grip. When we follow someone in the draft it gives us more straight line speed but when we get to the corner and since we’re relying on the air to give us downforce to make grip we lose speed if we don’t have it. That’s why we don’t run in the big drafting packs at tracks other than Daytona and Talladega .”

Terry on Racing on All-Star Weekend: “I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not, but I think we see the kind of racing you see in the All-Star race every week in the Truck Series. Some of it has to do with racing at night. Night races always seem to be a little more exciting. And I think a big part of it is that we’re racing in front of all of the teams. Most weeks the guys at the fab shop and the gear and transmission shop don’t get to come to the track, but this week they do. There’s a lot of pressure to perform because you have all these extra people here. That creates a lot of excitement.”

Terry Cook Speaks To Toyota Truck Champions: Terry spent Tuesday May 6th in Charlotte , North Carolina speaking at the Southeast Toyota Truck Champions business meeting. These champions are responsible for the marketing and selling of the Toyota Tundra at the dealership level in the Southeast United States . Terry spoke about his season so far and his first season with the Wyler Racing team as well as discussing elements of teamwork that relate to racing and the selling of the Tundra at the dealership level.

Terry on the Truck: “We’re not racing the truck we used at Kansas . We’re taking the truck that we ran at California and Atlanta . It was in the top five at California and the top ten at Atlanta so we think we’ll have a pretty good chance to get up there with it again. I’ve been close to winning there before. I was second to Kyle Busch in 2005 and 2006 so all I need to do is pick up that one spot and we’re good to go.”

Team Manager Tom Buzze on Taking the Truck No. 68 to Lowe’s: “It’s all about John (Quinn, crew chief)’s plan to rotate through the trucks. We don’t want Terry to get used to just one truck. We want to give him several that are all that good. Of course after we went and ran as well as we did at Kansas with No. 84, Terry wanted to take that one here to Charlotte but we’re going to stick with the original plan. We’ve had all of our trucks audited for downforce and we have three that are really good mile and a half trucks and another two that are really close. Right now we’re concentrating on making Terry’s job as easy as we can. It’s just a matter of time until the pieces fall into place and we get a win.”

Terry’s Stats at Lowe’s: Terry has raced in all five previous NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. His best finish is second in 2005 and 2006. He led 11 laps in the 2005 races. His average finish is 9.6 and his average start is 22.8. He has completed all but one of the 676 possible laps in competition. He finished 16th in this race last season.