CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS Bad luck hampers Cook's season

He's eighth in the standings and needs a change of luck.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
MILWAUKEE -- As much as Terry Cook intended to challenge for the Craftsman Truck Series championship this year, and as much as his eighth-place standing thus far falls short of expectations, he can't be too upset.
Sure it's a clich & eacute;, but Cook blames bad racing luck for much of his trouble, and his point is tough to argue.
OK, so Cook and his team missed the setup last weekend in Memphis, and they were off a little bit in a couple of other races. Those are mistakes; you learn from them and go on.
But when you're running in the top five with 20 laps to go and a tire goes flat, that's bad luck. And when your crew chief suffers a heart attack, which brings turnover to the team, well, who can predict something like that?
"What can we do?" Cook said in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Unlucky horseshoe
"We were at Dover [International Speedway in Dover, Del., last month], and inside of Dover they have a horse track there. When I was walking across the cinder track, I found a horseshoe.
"I picked it up; we put it in the transporter. We're running extremely well, running second or third all day long, and then finally we knocked a hole in the radiator.
"I took that horseshoe when we got to the trailer, and I threw it back where I found it. We're trying to bring good luck to the program, and we can't even do it."
Perhaps Milwaukee might be the charm.
Cook started on the pole in the GNC 200 last year, led the most laps and beat Jason Leffler on a late restart to score the second of his four victories on the way to his best season in racing.
This weekend the 35-year-old Ohioan returns to the Milwaukee Mile, the site of his first truck start seven years ago, looking to score a repeat victory Saturday and get a maddeningly bumpy season back on track.
"Every corner we turn, there's been adversity," Cook said. "The good teams are the ones that rise from that, and I think we have and we're still there. We're just having some dumb racing luck right now. Once we get over that, we'll be in victory circle."
Still looking ahead
While Cook refuses to dwell on the bad breaks -- "you have to keep looking forward," he says -- the laundry list of odd twists and turns his year has taken does make for interesting conversation.
Perhaps the season opener in Daytona Beach, Fla., served as a preview for the first eight races. Cook qualified fifth, ran second when he hit the white flag, took the lead in Turn 1 and then got swallowed up by the draft to finish ninth.
Before the third race of the year, in Bakersfield, Calif., a crewman fell ill and the use of a substitute hurt pit stops. Then in April, crew chief Bob Keselowski was stricken by a massive heart attack. His brother, Ron, a co-owner of the family-run team, stepped in until veteran Rick Ren could be added.
Of course, no pit boss could have kept air in the tire in Concord, N.C., or debris out of the radiator in Dover, to prevent a pair of solid top-five finishes from turning into a 14th and 20th.
Cook knows the fact that he has finished no better than eighth in a race this year cannot be blamed entirely on bad luck.
Last season, Cook and the K-Automotive Ford team seemed to run particularly well on tracks (including Milwaukee) where one specific type of Goodyear tire was used, and the tire has been eliminated this year.
The replacement seems to be more durable and consistent throughout its life, but Cook and his crew just don't have quite as good a grip on how to adjust their truck to its differences.
"I don't want to say it's got us baffled or buffaloed," Cook said. "But we really feel like last year we had the program to beat on that particular tire, and this year, with this different tire, we don't quite have it figured out yet.
"I think for Milwaukee, we learned some things at Memphis that will apply, and I think we'll be pretty good."
A fast truck would be nice. So would a little good luck.