Terry Cook No. 60 Wyler.com Toyota Tundra Preview
Round 11 of 25 – The Milwaukee Mile: Camping World RV Sales 200

What do you remember about making your series debut at Milwaukee in 1996? “I remember it was the “Great American Gravel Race”. The track was coming apart in the corners really bad. You could be 50 miles per hour faster than a lapped truck but you would have to wait until the straightaway to make the pass. There was literally one groove there. If you got out of that groove you were into the gravel and you went on a ride. I also remember going there with a 30-foot trailer and my crew cab dually. We had one truck. We did have a backup engine if we needed it, but we didn’t have a pit box. We had to push our toolboxes from the trailer down to the pits. We must have made 200 trips back and forth. I remember saying if we ever went to another race we would have a pit box.”

What do you remember about your win at Milwaukee in 2002? “We just about dominated everything that weekend. We were fastest in practice and won the pole. We led about 120 laps in the race and then had a bad pit stop late in the race. We had a late caution and I was able to race past the leader and win it on a green-white-checkered finish. It is probably one of my most favorite Truck Series memories.”

You are a racing history buff – how cool is it to come race at the oldest raceway in the country? “It’s really cool. I’ve seen the changes they’ve made there since I came to my first race in 1996. They’ve paved the track, added the SAFER barrier, totally redid the infield and rebuilt the grandstands. Now they’ve moved it from the heat of the day on a Saturday to a night race on Friday night. That’s made it a lot better for the drivers and I am sure the fans too. Traditionally Milwaukee was always the first race after the Indy 500 and if you look at the list of winners there are a lot of names that have won both. There are a lot of stock car legends that have run here and won too. It is really special to me to be on that list of winners with some of the greats of the sport.”

How does Milwaukee drive, like a short track or a superspeedway? “It races like a short track but there is definitely superspeedway speed involved. For a flat racetrack there is a lot of good side-by-side racing. You have good passing points all the way around. There are some flat tracks we go to that are just single-groove tracks. That is all you can ask for as a driver, that you have options.”

Does The Milwaukee Mile change a lot from day to night? “Some tracks like Indianapolis Motor Speedway really do. Other tracks like ORP and Milwaukee don’t. If you are good in practice at Milwaukee during the day you should be pretty good at night. The track actually gains grip. If you are a little loose it will help tighten you up. The real challenge we have is to make the truck roll through the center. You’ll hear drivers complaining about that all day and night.”

Do you generally see any problems on pit road here? “Typically not. Once in a while we’ll see green flag stops but the majority of them are under caution. We’ve already picked our pit stalls since we are working on pit road there. Hopefully we have a good location on pit road that will let us get in and out cleanly. But we don’t usually see a lot of problems on pit road there.”

You made your debut in 1996 at Milwaukee and Wyler Racing made its debut as a team there in 2005. Does that give the event any added significance? “I didn’t think about that until just now. I can remember seeing that truck for the first time coming through tech knowing the Fiddleback Racing team had just imploded. It was a yellow and blue truck, if I remember right. Now that I think about it, it is pretty cool to know I made my debut there in 1996 and nine years later the Wylers made their debut there. It’s even better that we’re now all on the same team. That might make this race a little more significant for everyone.”

This week’s Truck: Terry will drive chassis No. 99 at Milwaukee . It has been raced one other time in 2008: he started 23rd and finished 13th at Dover .

Terry Cook’s Milwaukee Stats: Terry has 12 career starts at Milwaukee , with two poles (2002 and 2003), one win (2002), two top-five finishes, and six top-ten finishes. His average start is 13.4 and his average finish is 13.3. He has completed 2,289 of 2,408 possible competition laps (95.1%). He has led 172 laps in two races (131 in 2002 and 41 in 2003).