TERRY COOK-10-Ford Power Stroke Diesel by Int'l F-150 (Finished 1st)

"Wow, what a day. We rolled off the trailer fast and we've been doing that
the past four or five weeks, so we just haven't been able to have any luck
during a race. Several times this year we've had trucks that could win, just
something happens. We qualified fifth and drove up to second, and no sooner
do I get to second and I feel a right-front tire going down. We cut a
right-front tire down. We have bead blowers. We run a hose that blows cool
air on the sidewall of the tire to keep the tires cool, and unfortunately
they're wrapped with wire inside and I think a piece of wire got in the tire
and cut it down. We pitted under green and lost a lap and then got it back
through the Lucky Dog and restarted 32nd and drove all the way up to, I think
at that point, 10th or 11th. Then the cycling of pit stops, I had a great pit
crew and had great pit stops and cycling and a great strategy by Dennis
Connor there at the end. I think a lot of teams thought they needed to take
tires later and we saw early on in the race that tires weren't that big of an
issue. Our truck was so good, we packed it with fuel to go to the end and
just set sail. Once we got the lead and got clean air on the clean, it was
just unstoppable."

GIVEN YOU HAD THREE TOP-10 FINISHES HERE, DID YOU FEEL YOU HAD TO GET A
TOP-THREE FINISH OR WIN THIS WEEKEND? "Honestly, yeah, just because our
program has gotten so strong over the last, what we feel, four or five weeks,
maybe even six weeks. The summer stretch has always been my strong point, and
we're in race seven of a nine-race stretch across the summer here. We've
always run good at the mile-and-a-halfs, and our program has excelled another
fold and my crew chief Dennis Connor told me for the first time in a long
time that not only is he ready to win again. In other words, he's built a
team up to that level because he just joined us during the off-season. But,
for the first time all year long, he felt that our team was finally ready to
win, and the very first weekend he said that, we put it in Victory Lane. The
guy's got three Craftsman Truck Series championships under his belt. I can't
tell you how many wins and poles, and he's just a plethora of knowledge. He
guided this team to victory today."

"A little, but happening on whatever lap it happened -18, 19 or 20 - it was
very early in a race of 167-lap race. I knew if we kept our head straight and
kept cool we could overcome this. I thought we were two laps down. The crew
chief told me we were only one down, which was fortunate for us. The truck
was so good that I think we could have drove past the leader and got one of
those back and then got the Lucky Dog to get the second one back. Fortunately
at that point, we were only one lap down and we elected to take right-side
tires only when we popped the right-front tire. That's misfortune, but, man,
I just can't tell you how good that truck was. I've got a great spotter, a
new spotter this year with Tony Hirschman. He guided me through the field,
back in the 30s. The thing here about Kansas, a hot day like this and the
track gets so slick, so you're really sliding around out there. You really
have to use your head and you've got a lot of rookie drivers out there. I'm
the rookie driver coach, so I know what I'm dealing with each and every week,
and I know who I can race hard and who I can't, and fortunately today
everybody drove a safe, clean race."

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