Terry Cook is proof positive that it pays to know how to work on a race car. His skills both under the hood and behind the wheel helped propel him to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, where he's a multiple winner and championship contender.
I guess you could say I'm an old-style or a throwback kind of racer. By that I mean I knew the right end of a wrench long before I ever got to sit behind the steering wheel.
Like a lot of guys in racing today, I was raised in a racing family. My father, Harold Cook, started racing in the early '70s around our home in Sylvania, Ohio. Every Saturday and Sunday we would be at the races. As my dad got more into it, we would also be at the track racing on Thursday and Friday.
Even when we weren't racing, I was always around vehicles in my dad's auto repair shop. I wasn't old enough to work on anything at the time, so I would sweep the floors in the garage or clean our tow vehicle and race trailer.
When I finally got old enough, I started working on the cars at my dad's shop. He was an automotive and diesel mechanic by trade, and I learned a ton working there as a kid.
Having that opportunity as a kid taught me a lot of things that I can apply to my racing career as a driver. I can quickly pinpoint any problem that I might have and why we might have it on our No. 29 Power Stroke Diesel Ford. The fact that I can relay that information to the crew is a big help to our race team. After all, running well and winning is all about communication.
Fortunately, we've been able to do just that-win-this year. I'm totally lucky to be with K-Automotive, one of the best teams in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Everyone works so hard and we've finally seen a payoff this season.
When I started with them, they had lost their sponsor and I had left my previous ride. We needed each other, but it wasn't easy starting out the 2001 season without a sponsor. Until midseason, I was building shocks for the team as well as driving before we could finally afford to hire a shock specialist. I didn't mind. Heck, I always worked on my own stuff.
I didn't start driving until I was 19. I built my first Limited Late Model stock car with the help of my uncle, brother, and some friends. I had immediate success, dominating everything we entered at places like Flat Rock (Michigan) and Sandusky (Ohio) speedways. That's because we knew how to build cars after helping my father build them for many years. I had a lot of success the first four seasons of my career racing Limited Late Model or a Super Late Model. We won just about everything we got into, set a lot of track records, and won track championships.
Then I graduated to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 1996 and that was a whole new ballgame. The competition level jumped a bunch and I had to adapt. I won in my 34th career Truck Series start at Flemington, New Jersey, and I really thought I was on my way then. I never dreamed it would be another 88 starts-almost four years-before I got back to Victory Lane at St. Louis this season. When you win and then don't win again for quite some time, it gets disappointing. You start to wonder what's wrong, and it's not hard to get down on yourself.
When I look back at it, I spent the vast majority my racing career in under-funded equipment. Even when I was racing my own Limited and Super Late Model cars, I was scraping together the best I could. Honestly, it wasn't until this year that I finally had some great equipment. That's because the good people at Power Stroke Diesel believed in me as well as Bob, Ron, and Kay Keselowski and the whole K-Automotive team.
For years, I struggled as a driver because I didn't have the entire package. I didn't have the experience and my teams didn't have the finances. It took everything to fall in place-my years of experience working on and racing cars and trucks, a great sponsor, and an awesome race team to make Terry Cook an overnight success this season.