Cook Closes 2008 with Top-10 at Homestead; Clinches Tenth in Series Standings
Homestead, FL (November 15, 2008) - For 100 laps it looked like Terry Cook had a chance to fight for the win in Friday night’s Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Unfortunately for Cook at the HT Motorsports team, Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season finale was 134 laps, and over the final 34 laps Cook fought a loose handling truck that cost him a handful of positions in the final results.
At times Cook’s No. 59 Team ASE/Harris Trucking Toyota was as fast – or faster – than the leaders as he drove from eleventh on the starting grid to as high as fourth in the running order. But the handling characteristics of the truck went from tight to loose over the final run and Cook was forced to hold on to the end, scoring an eighth-place finish in the season finale and securing the tenth position in the final NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings.
“We were really good on the first run,” Cook said. “The truck did everything I asked it to do. When we pitted I told Danny (Rollins, crew chief) not to touch a thing on the truck, just change tires and give me some fuel and send me back out. The truck started to tighten up on that second run and we decided to make an air pressure adjustment on the last set of tires to try to get us back to where were started. The pressures didn’t build up as much as we anticipated and we were just way too loose going into the corners.”
Although Cook dropped to ninth at the finish, he was still very pleased with the team’s performance throughout the race and the final five weeks of the season.
“I really wanted to give everyone involved a top-five here tonight,” Cook said. “We dropped a little at the end but no one has anything to hang their heads about tonight. We had a great truck and pit stops were awesome. We tried our best to win and we came up a little short. We ran five races together at the end of the year and had two top-ten finishes. We ran well enough every week to finish in the top ten every time and if we had a little luck on our side we could have had a couple of top-fives too. I had a lot of fun working with Jim Harris and Danny Rollins and everyone at HT Motorsports again.
“I want to thank Jim and Shari Harris for letting us come out and do this. They helped me stay up in the points and we ended up in the top ten. They really rejuvenated me after a tough summer and I hope I helped make the end of the year a little more fun for them too. It’s really nice to be able to come to the track and have fun and work with a great group of guys and that’s exactly what it’s been like here the past five weeks.”
Cook’s ninth-place run was the 173rd – and final – top-ten finish for team sponsor Team ASE. After 14 years the organization will be stepping away from the series as a primary team sponsor.
“I am really glad we sent off Team ASE with the kind of run we had here tonight,” Cook said. “Tim Zilke and Tony Molla were here cheering us on tonight and I thought we were going to give them a win for a little while. I am proud to have been able to represent them on and off the track as they ended their tenure here in the series. They’ve been great supporters of the Truck Series since the start and have been great to work with to end 2008.”
Cook ended the 2008 season tenth in the standings, just 53 points behind ninth-place Jack Sprague. He scored a total of two top-five finishes and nine top-ten finishes in 25 starts. Cook was also running at the finish of each race throughout the season. Throughout the season, Cook’s average start was 14.9 and his average finish was 14.2. After starting the first 20 races of the year with Wyler Racing and closing the season with five races with HT Motorsports, Cook joins Sprague as the only two drivers in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series history to finish the season in the top ten in the series standings while driving for two different teams throughout the season.
Charles Krall
Integrity Sports Marketing, LLC
(419) 262-0558
Charles@winningwithintegrity.com
|
