"We finally got our truck pretty good," said Cook of his jet black No. 60 Wyler Racing Toyota Tundra. "We weren't very good on the first day of the test and the guys went back to the hotel and put their heads together as to how we could fix it. We made a lot of changes today and by the end of the day, we were able to put up a lap that was on top of the board."

Cook toured the .526-mile Martinsville oval in 20.113 seconds (94.148 miles per hour) to take top honors in the final afternoon session at Martinsville Thursday. The time and speed were just good enough to nip Sprague (20.122) for the top spot in the four-hour afternoon practice, but not quick enough to be the fastest speed of the day as Sprague paced the cooler, early morning test session with a time of 19.792 (95.676 mph).

Sprague was spot on throughout the two-day test wheeling his Kevin Harvick, Inc. Chevy Silverado to the fastest time and speed in Wednesday's afternoon session making him one of the favorites to win in the Kroger 250 at Martinsville in two weeks.

Sprague will have plenty of competition for the victory, especially from a crop of rookie drivers who tested extremely well this week at Martinsville. Included in that group were Colin Braun, Brian Scott and Donny Lia, all who placed in the Top-10 on the speed charts Thursday.

Braun was particularly impressive steering his Roush Fenway Ford F-150 to fourth in Thursday afternoon's session with a lap of 20.149 seconds after blistering the Martinsville track with a time of 19.924 in the morning - good enough for the third-best time in that session.

Meanwhile, Scott and his No. 16 Xpress Motorsports Chevy backed up a solid day of testing on Wednesday with another top performance Thursday turning in the fifth-best time of the afternoon session with a lap of 20.164.

Lia was also impressive in his first look at Martinsville from behind the wheel of a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series entry. The reigning NASCAR Whelan Modified Series champion powered his TRG Chevy to fourth in the morning session (19.945) and backed it up with the seventh-best time in the afternoon with a 20.176 clocking.

Perhaps the biggest rookie surprise was Adam Crawford's lap of 20.142 seconds in the afternoon session putting his No. 14B Circle Bar Ford third overall in the final speed charts. Crawford was also in the Top-10 in the morning session finishing seventh overall with a lap of 19.957.

Ted Musgrave, Erik Darnell, Jon Wood and Timothy Peters closed out the list of drivers in the Top-10 in the afternoon test session while Travis Kvapil, A.J. Almendinger, Dennis Setzer and Mike Skinner completed those in the Top-10 morning practice session.

Skinner's run was a welcome sight to his Bill Davis team which got his No. 5 Toyota Tundra back in race trim after the truck was seriously damaged in an incident Wednesday morning. At speed, Skinner ran over what was estimated to be a 45-pound chunk of lead that came out of another truck. The piece of metal destroyed the front splitter and shoved the radiator back into the engine compartment causing significant damage to the potent BDR entry.

Skinner's problems Wednesday were the only ones anyone suffered throughout the two-day test as Thursday's activities went off without any additional crashes or spins.

Other notables in Thursday's Martinsville Truck Series test session were Ron Hornaday, Jr. and Chrissy Wallace. Hornaday, the defending series champion, couldn't match his teammate Sprague's performance Thursday turning in a disappointing effort with the 29th-best run in the morning session and only a 15th-best lap time in the afternoon practice.

Meanwhile, there were nothing but smiles in Wallace's Germain Racing pit area as the young driver was 11th in the afternoon session with a time of 20.215.

While the top speeds were just short of pole winning time for this event a year ago, several drivers remarked how much quicker the Martinsville oval seemed to be this time around.

"We're carrying a lot more speed into the corners," said Cook. "With the new tapered engine spacer and rear end gear rules, we really have to charge the corners more. It used to be you floated the truck into the corner, turned it, and then drove it up off the corner. Because you don't have the lower gear to help slow you down now, we're driving harder into the turn and relying more on the brakes to slow us down. You drive in harder to keep the RPM's up so you can still drive off the corner hard. It definitely seems faster even though it's the same old Martinsville."

Cook and the rest of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regulars will take their shot at winning the Kroger 250 when the division returns to Martinsville on Friday, March 28. The teams will have two more practice sessions that day before they qualify and race Saturday, March 29.

SPEED Channel is scheduled to air qualifying live at 10:10 a.m. Eastern Time Saturday morning prior to also televising the running of the Kroger 250 at 3 p.m. later that day. Motor Racing Network (MRN) and Sirius Satellite Radio NASCAR Channel 128 will also carry the race - the 19th Truck Series event to be held at the track - live that day.