Terry Cook has made nine starts at Talladega's sister track, Daytona International Speedway, with considerable success. He finished fourth in the first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at DIS in 2000, qualified on the pole in 2004 en route to a fifth-place finish, and overall has six top-ten finishes. Cook has run just as competitively at Talladega but is still searching for his first top-10 finish at the 2.66-mile tri-oval.

You ran competitively at Daytona in the past and have been a factor for the win. The style of racing is very similar at Talladega. What goes through your mind when you're fighting for the win in this style of racing? "It's like one big chess game. You want to look two or three moves ahead. You need to anticipate who is running well and where they are running well. Some guys are good on the bottom and some are good on the top. You need to anticipate all of that. You might want to be leading, or you might want to be in second or third. It all depends on the situation and you as the driver needs to have analyzed all of that. I remember that race at Daytona, it was me and Mike Wallace racing for the win. He was leading and I was tucked in behind him. There was a lapped truck up there with us and we had broken away from third on back. They were like a half a straightaway behind us. Then the lapped truck pulled out of line and started running side by side and I could see that gap closing. It slowed down the draft so much they caught us in just a couple of laps."

What runs through your mind as a driver when you're leading or running second ahead of the pack at Daytona or Talladega with just a few laps to go? "When the lapped truck pulled out and let the rest of the top-five catch up to us, I was literally screaming at the top of my lungs in the truck for him to get in line. If we would have stayed single file the worst we were going to do was finish second. I had already written the check for second and deposited it since we were so far ahead of third place. I was working on a plan to get the first place check too. But then we went side by side and the draft slowed way down. Those guys caught up with us and when they catch you they are running a lot faster than you are. You can see them coming in the mirror and you know they are catching you and there's not much you can do. In the space of a couple of laps I went from offensive - trying to find a way to get around the leader to win - to defensive. And then once they caught us we still had a couple of laps to go so I had to come up with another plan to get back up and fight for the win. It's just a big chess match."

The truck you finished fourth with at Daytona in 2000 was the oldest, heaviest and probably least aerodynamic in your fleet at the time. We've seen other teams have problems with their primary trucks and go to a backup truck that was built for a downforce track or even a short track and have success. How do you determine the type of truck to bring to a Daytona to Talladega race? "Even though the tracks are very similar there are some differences. Daytona is all about handling, and that has changed a lot since we started racing there at night. During the day the tires would fall off after eight or ten laps. At night they fall off after 15 or 20 laps. At Talladega handling isn't an issue at all. It's all about horsepower and cutting through the wind. If you are running a downforce style truck you might have a slight advantage in traffic because you're getting more grip to the tires, but once you start trying to get up and fight for the lead you'll find that it start to works against you."

How will the smaller plate affect the Toyota teams at Talladega? "Daytona is a handling racetrack and you can get away with a truck with a little more drag because of the added downforce," said Wyler Racing team general manager Tom Buzze. "Even before they repaved Talladega handling wasn't an issue. You want a truck that cuts through the air as cleanly as possible. You need as much horsepower as you can get too. We have the smaller restrictor plate again this week, and even though it's just twenty-five thousandths of an inch, that's 16 to 18 horsepower. Where that will really affect us will be in qualifying and if we get up to the front of the field. The draft is the great equalizer, but where we will be at a disadvantage is when we try to get up and lead the draft."

Terry's Talladega Truck:  Terry will drive a new, as yet unnamed, truck at Talladega this weekend. "This is a new truck that hasn't been raced yet," said team general manager Tom Buzze. "It was tested at Daytona earlier in the year and has been to the wind tunnel a couple of times. Terry liked it in the Daytona test, but he chose to race another truck there because it felt just a little better in traffic. We lost that truck in a crash that was none of Terry's doing, but we put the front end of the truck we're racing this weekend just like the Daytona truck was."

Terry's Talladega Stats: Terry has started both NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races held at Talladega Superspeedway. He finished 14th in 2006 completing all 94 laps. In 2007 he was swept up in a multi-truck crash not of his making on lap 73, resulting in a 28th-place finish. Talladega is one of two tracks on the NCTS schedule at which Terry has yet to score a top-10 finish.