Terry Cook and the No. 10 Power Stroke Diesel Ford race team left Martinsville Speedway with a disappointing 22nd-place finish in Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event. Cook, who entered this event with three consecutive top-10 finishes the last three years, was hoping to continue his trend in 2004. Staying strong each lap, Cook managed to finish on the lead lap in the series’ third event of the season.

“We had to fight back all day long,” said Cook, who falls to 11th in the driver points standings. “We started in the back and never really had a real good truck to drive to the front. As luck would have it, all day long we’d put ourselves in contention to get a lap back and something would happen; we’d always get passed a lap before. This is the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and you’re allowed only four sets of tires. When you unload, you’d better be close on your setup because you’re limited on your practice. If you’re not, you’re going to chase it all weekend and unfortunately that’s what we did here at Martinsville. We chased the setup the entire weekend and never were able to get it where we wanted it to be. This is definitely a big disappointment for the Power Stroke Diesel race team. We’ll rebound, I know we will. This is a really, really good race team. ppc Racing is a class act. We’ll make sure at the next short track that we’ll be as good as this team should be.”

Cook started 31st and was optimistic about moving up to the front. He managed to stay on the lead lap until lap 71 when the leader past him on the outside in turns one and two. Much to avail, the caution flag flew on lap 79, keeping Cook one lap down. The ppc Racing crew changed four tires, added gasoline and adjusted on the truck in just a shy over 21 sec. giving Cook a 24th-place position on the restart.

Cook would remain one lap down throughout the event until the 11th caution flag flew on lap 232, when the Sylvania, Ohio native would earn the “Lucky Dog Award” by virtue of being the first truck one lap down. Cook restarted the event 25th on lap 238 and avoided the last-race cautions to finish 22nd, a finish he replicated at the .526-mile racing facility in 1998.

“This is a truck we shook down a couple of times this year,” said Cook. “We had high expectations coming here at Martinsville. This was our first short-track truck and it certainly did not perform. The main thing we need to do is test and make sure that when we do unload at Mansfield next month, we have a really good truck. We unloaded yesterday and were a 24th-place truck. We finished Happy Hour 21st and 22nd in today’s race. We’ll come out of here with our heads held low even though we know this is a good program. We’ll raise our heads come Monday morning and get back to work.”

ppc Racing and driver Terry Cook will take the No. 10 Power Stroke Diesel Ford to Mansfield Motorsports Speedway May 16th for the Ohio 250. The event will be the first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at the .44-mile racing facility and in the state of Ohio, Cook’s home state.