Terry Cook behind the wheel of the No. 59 Harris Trucking Toyota Tundra at the O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway. (VPS Motorimages Photo)

A fast truck, some solid pit strategy, and a little luck proved to be the right combination for Terry Cook as he steered his HT Motorsports Toyota Tundra to a ninth-place finish in the O'Reilly 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway Saturday.

It was the first Top-10 finish of the season for Cook (left) and his new team in five NCTS events this season and it had the Sylvania, OH driver looking for bigger and better things as the season shifts into high gear in May.

"This team has had a natural progression getting better every week," said Cook. "Hopefully, this is the first of many Top-10 finishes this season. You can't expect to come in as a new team and win races right out of the box. We knew that it was going to take a little while to build this program, but we're starting to get there one good finish at a time."

Cook, the winner of the Kansas truck race a year ago, was hardly visible in practice Friday as his HT Motorsports team needed additional time to get a brand new vehicle built for this race through the technical inspection process. The result was just a handful of practice laps in the first test session.

When thunderstorms washed out the second test period later Friday afternoon, the team had to scramble to make the right chassis set-up calls prior to Saturday's qualifying session.

"When you only have five or six laps of practice like we did Friday, some of the adjustments you make before qualifying and the race are purely guesses," said Cook. "Typically, you only pit once or twice during these races, so you had better have it right when you roll off to take the green flag. Fortunately, crew chief Danny Rollins and the rest of the team made some good decisions before qualifying and the race."

Rollins, along with team engineer Ken Woodard and truck chief Danny Johnson, came up with the right decisions as Cook qualified his No. 59 Tundra solidly in Saturday's starting field with a time of 32.245 seconds (167.468 miles per hour) - good enough for 11th in the 36-truck lineup.

At the drop of the green flag, Cook pounded his way around the 1.5-mile Kansas oval narrowly missing a pair of incidents in the early going. A call by Rollins brought Cook to pit road earlier than planned during the second caution flag period of the race putting him on a different pit cycle - a move that would pay off later when the leaders had to pit under green flag conditions.

Another caution flag on Lap 73 of the 167-circuit contest, proved to be the turning point of the event as Cook and the handful of others who pitted earlier in the race were now one-lap ahead of most of the field.

"That caution helped us, not doubt about that," said Cook. "You have to have a little racing luck sometimes, but it was a good strategy call by Danny to pit early and get us in that position. You make your own luck in racing. You build a great vehicle at the race shop, execute in practice and qualifying, and do the job in the race. Yeah, we might have been lucky to be on the right side of the caution flag, but we put ourselves in that position to get that good luck."

Cook's luck held throughout the end of the race as his Tundra survived an apparent engine problem in the late going. Over the final 30 laps, Cook was still passing trucks despite the problem working his way to ninth at the checkered flag.

It was Cook's fifth Top-10 finish in seven career Kansas NCTS starts. One of the most consistent drivers on the tour, Cook has now completed 1,155 of the 1,172 (99 percent) of the laps contested in his seven Kansas Truck Series appearances.

"We had some engine issues at the end of the race, but thank goodness, we had a TRD motor in there," said Cook. "They build engines that last and despite having some issues, it lasted the entire race. Kudos to them."

The solid effort also moved Cook up two spots to 16th in the 2007 Craftsman Truck Series championship chase - just four points out of 15th and 128 out of the Top-10. Cook has gained nine spots in the season standings in the last three events.

"We have some good people here and people who are new to the program are starting to fit in," said Cook. shown at left with HT Motorsports team owner Jim Harris. "It doesn't matter what sport it is - major league football, baseball, basketball, racing, whatever - you need time to jell together. You don't just throw a bunch of people together and expect them to perform at a top level immediately. I think we're on the right road here. We just have to keep getting better at every race and the good finishes will continue to follow."