Terry Cook led once for 108 laps to earn WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors in today's Kroger 200, the first time this season he has captured the honor. Cook is the ninth different driver to win the WIX Filters Lap Leader Award this season. He was one of only three driver to lead a lap in today's race. Cook has now led twice in two races for a total of 110 laps.
- Cook was running in the top-10 when he was involved in an accident in Turn 2 on lap 168. He was credited with a 29th-place finish.
- Unofficially is 14th in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship standings.
- Mike Skinner holds a two-race lead (8-6) over Ron Hornaday Jr. in the overall WIX Filters Lap Leader standings.
COOK QUOTES: "I definitely could have held off Hornaday. I didn't have an issue with that. I thought we were going to be fine. He's the restart king, I guess, and on one of those restarts he just got underneath me and we had a truck pinned on the bottom and he went down in the corner and just ran all over me and sent me up the track and a bunch of 'em got by again. You can't control everybody that's running behind you. You can only control what you're team is doing and the fact that I felt like we had the right strategy, we had a good enough truck to at least come out of here with a top-five, at the worst case scenario we were a top-10 finish, we would have been happy with that. But to come out of here getting just pushed around and beat up on and then finally just finished off in a wreck down here, that's pretty disappointing." YOUR PLAN WAS TO GO THE FULL DISTANCE. "That was the plan right from the get-go. We were saving fuel from the time we qualified. The whole strategy was to not pit, save fuel. NASCAR, in my opinion, needs to change this race to make it 225 or at least make it 250 like the spring race. Put that out of the window. It's kind of like that racing you saw in the Car of Tomorrow at Talladega. Fans don't want to see 'em lined up but if that's what it takes to race 500 miles that's what you do. Well, to race here and be competitive and to have a shot to win we thought doing it without pitting was going to be the way to do it and I thought it was going to pay off today." DID YOU KNOW YOUR TRUCK WAS THAT STRONG BEFORE THE RACE? "We did. We were third fastest in yesterday's practice and, unfortunately, didn't adjust for qualifying. When the track conditions changed today it was a lot hotter, the sun was out. We didn't keep up with the racetrack for qualifying and kind of got a little behind there. I was as shocked as anybody when the whole entire field pitted in front of me. I thought at least one truck would stay out. For the whole field to pit and the next thing you know we got the lead in the race is pretty cool. We showed we had a fast truck. We could drive away from the 60 truck and others at times. It's disappointing. At one point of the race I thought 'Wow, we might have a shot at winning this thing.' We were driving away from the 60 and a bunch of these other trucks and I thought we really had a shot at it. But what we found was that we were good for a 15-20 lap run and as more laps were put on the tires we really started tightening up through the center of the corner and that's where they started running all over us. Even though it's tight quarters racing here at Martinsville, I still think the guys behind me could have passed me cleanly. But to just run all over you is not fun racing."