Terry Cook heads to Gateway International Raceway for this weekend's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event looking to continue his streak of top-10 finishes. The nine-year series veteran won in confident fashion in 2002, leading the last 44 laps. With four consecutive top-10 finishes the last four years, one can bet Cook will be a threat to again earn another top-10 finish, only this time with ppc Racing.

"Gateway in 2002 was a special weekend," said Cook, who started eighth that day. "We had an optional test day which turned our weekend into a three-day weekend. We visited a local school on Thursday and talked to a bunch of kids. Leading up to that race, I came down with a severe sinus infection and it progressively got worse everyday. As good as we were running on the track throughout the weekend it didn't seem to bother me but it caught up with me on race day morning. I didn't know how well my performance would be in the truck but the truck was just flawless. We went the last one hundred laps under the green flag to the end. There were only three caution flags. I was definitely falling out of the seat at end of the race because I wasn't feeling well. The truck was running so well that it didn't seem to matter much. The Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International truck was on the rails all day long."

Cook has showed the thousands of NASCAR Camping World Truck Series fans he is not only good on race day but in qualifying. A second and a pair of fourth-place starts have this Sylvania, Ohio native as one to watch all weekend. Cook was strong last Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway, running fourth with 15 laps to go until a right-rear tire blew ending his competitive run. He entered the event with a pair of top-10 finishes at The Milwaukee Mile and Kansas Speedway but now is focused on Gateway and the next two events, including the Power Stroke Diesel 200 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

"We're in the summer stretch," said Cook, the five-time series winner. "The next three races starting with Gateway are special to me because we run at some of my favorite venues. It's a homecoming per se going to Michigan (International Speedway) and IRP (Indianapolis Raceway Park). I really like Gateway because it's so uniquely different than any other track that we run. It's got super-long straightaways, which requires you to have a great engine under the hood. Fortunately we have one of those with Robert Yates Racing engines. It's a track where turns one and two is extremely tight. The groove is very narrow being right down at the bottom. In turns three and four, it's a big, flat, long, sweeping corner. It just promotes great side-by-side racing just about everywhere you race. It's the only oval track that we race on that a lot of the teams elect to shift and that adds another element to the race. We'll probably upshift and downshift once or twice or more each lap. Gateway is different from the norm. It's shaped different at both ends. It's like racing on three different tracks in one."

Based in Mooresville, N.C., ppc Racing enters its first season of competition in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with driver Terry Cook and the No. 10 Ford Power Stroke Diesel by International race team. ppc Racing continues its competition in the NASCAR Busch Series, its fifth season, with driver Jason Keller in the No. 22 Miller High Life Ford Taurus. With co-owners Greg Pollex and Keith Barnwell, ppc Racing earned the 2000 NASCAR Busch Series championship and has scored 27 wins and more than 150 top-five finishes as it enters the 2004 season.