Terry Cook (Ronda Greer Photo)

Terry Cook and the No. 10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International race team brought home another top-10, finishing eighth in Friday night's Silverado 350 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) race at Texas Motor Speedway. The No.10 team was fast in practice and backed up those fast laps in qualifying. Cook broke the track record on his first qualifying lap and then improved on that time by another .010 on the second lap. Holding the pole for more than half of qualifying, Cook ended up with the third starting position. Pleased with the qualifying effort the entire team was ready to get back to Friday night racing under the lights. Confident racing the truck that finished second in Atlanta the previous week and won in Kansas in July, Cook was ready for the green flag to fall.

With temperatures falling below 40 degrees, Cook worked to warm up his engine and tires on the pace laps of the race. When the green flag fell just after 8:00 p.m., Cook passed second place Mike Skinner on the start and took the second position away heading into turn one. Before he could challenge the leader, the caution came out and slowed down the field. Running laps faster than the leader on the restart, Cook began reeling in the competition.

By lap 27, Cook radioed the team about the condition of the truck. "I'm tight in, free in the center, and tight off." Planning to make adjustments on the first stop, Cook had to be patient until then.

A caution on lap 44 gave the driver the relief he needed. Cook brought the No.10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford to pit road for four fresh tires, fuel, track bar and air pressure adjustments. Cook restarted fifth.

Reporting something wrong with the right front tire, Cook radioed the crew that the tire "felt flat and would not turn."

By lap 82 it was a tight condition on the exit of the turns and in traffic that plagued the No.10. Despite the challenges, Cook moved up one position to fourth by lap 84. A caution on lap 92 gave the No.10 another chance to pit in the 147-lap event. Taking air out of the left rear tire and putting a spring rubber in the right rear, the team hoped that the truck's condition would be better. Taking four fresh tires and fuel, Cook was down and away. The spring rubber adjustment took extra time on pit road and forced Cook to restart ninth.

Getting jammed up on the restart; Cook fell to the 11th position before clawing his way back into the top-10. Still reporting a tight-center condition, Cook worked even harder to make passes. While working to pass Ron Horn day Jr., Hornaday failed to see Cook and pushed the No.10 into the wall knocking in the front fender. The damage hurt the downforce of the Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International Ford F-150. Falling back to 12th, Cook once again began his march toward the front, fighting for each and every position. By lap 133, he was eighth when the caution came out again, setting up a green/white/checkered finish. On the final three laps of the race, Cook held his position and crossed the start/finish line eighth, bringing home the 11th top-10 finish of the season for the Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International race team.

"I thought we had a truck that could run up there with them, but we just lost a bunch of track position on that last pit stop. We made an adjustment and it just took us some extra time. Once you lose the track position - we weren't very good in traffic. When we were out running with the top three or four and we separated ourselves, and we were just as good as anybody, but when we get mixed up, whether it's double-file on restarts, or in traffic, we were just terrible. I don't understand what the problem was with the truck, if the nose was up a little too high or what, but we could not get through turns one and two on the outside. Actually, we couldn't run on the outside anywhere all night long. We slid all the way back to 11th and a couple of competitors took us three wide off of turn two and got us up in the wall and wrinkled up the left-front fender and lost a ton of downforce there. We battled back from 11th to eighth. Three weeks ago we would have been tickled to death with a top-10 effort, but knowing that we had this strong of a race truck and ran some of the fastest laps of the race, if not the fastest lap of the race, that's pretty hard to swallow to only come out of here with an eighth-place finish."