NASCAR Truck

Ford Racing Chicago qualifying notes

TERRY COOK-29-Power Stroke Diesel Ford F-150 (Qualified 12th) "I got into Turn 3 a little too deep and decided to overdrive it trying to go for a pole lap, but unfortunately, we ended up almost hitting the pole. Right now we're third, and I'm sure ...

Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM

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TERRY COOK-29-Power Stroke Diesel Ford F-150 (Qualified 12th)

"I got into Turn 3 a little too deep and decided to overdrive it trying to go for a pole lap, but unfortunately, we ended up almost hitting the pole. Right now we're third, and I'm sure we won't stay up there at the end of the day. Hopefully we'll end up in the top 10 somewhere. We have a great race truck driver, but he just overdrove it in qualifying."

DID THE TRACK CHANGE SINCE PRACTICE?

"It didn't seem to have a whole lot of adhesion on the first lap and I kinda went for it on the second lap hoping for a great lap, but I just overdrove it, and that put up a pretty slow lap."

DID YOU PICK UP ANYTHING FROM PRACTICE THAT YOU CAN USE TOMORROW?

"I learned a lot today, especially how deep you can go in these corners. I also learned what not to do, which unfortunately came during our qualifying run. I was hoping to get in the top five, but we'll race the hell out of them tomorrow."

JON WOOD-50-Eldon Ford F-150 (Qualified 14th)

HAS THE TRACK CHANGED THAT MUCH SINCE THE END OF PRACTICE ONE HOUR AGO?

"I don't know what's happened. We're scratching our heads right now trying to figure out what has changed."

DO YOU HAVE A BETTER TRUCK IN RACE TRIM?

"That's what we were thinking going into qualifying, but now I don't know. We'll get this thing figured out, but I'm a little frustrated because I thought we were a whole lot better than that."

KYLE BUSCH-99-Eldon Ford F-150 (Qualified 5th)

YOU GOT FASTER EVERY LAP MADE TODAY.

"Yeah, and we brought it home in one piece unlike the last time I had a fast truck. The Eldon Ford-150 ran great and I can't thank the guys enough for getting this put together for me on short notice. I was just sitting in this truck on Wednesday in Michigan getting the seat adjusted. This is just a great start to what will hopefully be a great weekend. We were fast right off the truck and we made a couple of changes and here we are qualifying in the top five. We're just waiting for Happy Hour because we think it will just as fast in race trim. This deal wasn't scary at all. It just stuck to the ground and I put the pedal to the floor and went."

KURT ISN'T HERE TO GIVE YOU POINTERS THIS WEEKEND, SO WHOM ARE YOU LEANING ON?

"I actually didn't talk to Kurt at all this week about the race track. I just came here and had to work off of what he had to work off of, which was absolutely nothing. It was a brand-new track for him last year and it was a brand-new track for me. Every track is different and I have to learn them all. Everybody said this track is fast, but I haven't been to Daytona yet, so I don't know what that's like."

YOU'VE NEVER RACED ON A TRACK OVER ONE MILE IN LENGTH.

"Yeah, but I tested up the street at Chicagoland, which is even bigger than this. NASCAR, at first, wasn't going to let us go here, but we pulled a couple of strings to come here and play with the Truck Series boys, and I'm having a lot of fun. We're having fun qualifying up front and hopefully we can race there."

YOU NEED TO KEEP YOUR NOSE CLEAN, SO HOW DOES THAT FACTOR INTO YOUR STRATEGY?

"That's going to be one heck of a show to try and run up front with the big dogs. We're going to try a few things in Happy Hour to see if we can't keep it up front in the race."

DO YOU THINK ANY OF THE VETERANS MAY TRY TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOU STARTING UP FRONT?

"It's going to be a learning experience, but I want to earn their respect, so I'm going to try to turn them. It's been a lot of fun so far. Jack Sprague gave a little bit of a hard time to Kurt here last year, but hopefully he won't mess with us this year."

RICK CRAWFORD-14-Milwaukee Electric Tool Ford F-150 (Qualified 6th)

"You've got to tiptoe through the corners here. The Milwaukee Electric Tool Ford was fourth quick in practice and right now I think we're fourth on the board. I think we'll have something for them tomorrow in the race. The good think about this particular truck is that is gets better as the day goes on. We had to get it qualified in the top seven, and we'll get after them tomorrow."

YOU RACED HERE LAST YEAR. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO PASS AROUND HERE?

"It's going to take a lot of discipline at this place. You can't charge the corners, so you have to get your momentum up and you can't worry about a truck if he's just hanging out there in front of you. You can't overdrive your truck to pass his truck. You can only go after one truck at a time, and if you try to make a pass on more than one, that's when you get in trouble."

IS THAT WHERE HORSEPOWER DOWN THE STRAIGHTAWAYS COMES INTO PLAY?

"Every little bit always helps, especially at a place like this that has long straightaways."

Ford Racing

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