Cook hopes old dog does tricks at Milwaukee

In an effort to turn around what has been a frustrating season, Terry Cook and the K Automotive team are turning to an old dog.

Droopy Dog.

Droopy Dog is the name of a truck the team built for flat tracks, and last year Droopy won twice and finished in the top five three other times. It's a 1.5-inch drop-snout Laughlin chassis; hence the name Droopy.

One of the races Cook and Droopy won last year was at the Milwaukee Mile, the site of this weekend's GNC 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race. Cook and Droopy "killed the field" last year, and Cook hopes for similar results this time.

	Cook's team looks to defend its Milwaukee title Saturday. Credit: Autostock

The results in 2003 haven't been like 2002 for Cook. After winning four times last year, Cook's best finish has been an eighth at Darlington. Seems that one thing or another has kept Cook from finishing better, starting with the medical problems of crew chief and co-owner Bob Keselowski.

Keselowski suffered a massive heart attack before the Martinsville race and has since given up crew chief duties to Rick Ren.

"It definitely has set us back," Cook said. "Some of the things we were adapting into our program this year was up in Bob's brain. Unfortunately, when he took a turn for the worse, we had a big void."

Keselowski is back at the racetrack, but he's more of a team manager now. Meanwhile, the chemistry between Cook and Ren is still brewing.

"In the middle of the season, I'm trying to learn more about the crew chief, the crew chief's trying to learn me, we're trying to get to the point where we're gelling," Cook said. "I feel like we're working together extremely well. We just need to continue to work together to get to the point where we're gelling."

Ren lives in Mooresville, N.C. and only goes to the racetrack with the team, adding another variable of change.

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The races have continued, however, and Cook has done the best he could. But he's run into myriad problems, starting at Daytona. There, he led late in the race but got shuffled out of the draft and finished ninth.

At Bakersfield, one of Cook's crewmen had food poisoning and missed the race. His replacement was slow changing tires, and Cook lost track position every time he pitted. He was 10th with Droopy Dog.

At Martinsville, Cook and Ron Keselowski, Bob's brother and fill-in crew chief, went the wrong direction on the chassis, and even Droopy Dog couldn't overcome that. The result was another ninth.

At Charlotte, Cook was in contention until a late-race flat tire pushed him back to 14th.

"You want to get the monkey off your back because a lot of it's dumb racing luck," Cook said. "Eventually we will, but right now we're kind of struggling with it.

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"To us, the season's been terrible. We're a team that won four races last year, so we're accustomed to running in the top five competitively. We haven't even broken the top five this year."

But maybe Droopy Dog will help change that. It's called a drop-snout because the pickup points between where the lower and upper A-frames are attached to the chassis are lower than a traditional chassis.

"The whole intention of a drop snout is to make the front end turn better," Cook said. "Traditionally, it works really good on a flat track, like the Milwaukee Mile or New Hampshire."

Cook runs Milwaukee well, too, having made his first NCTS start there in addition to his victory in 2002.

"I've run well every time I've been there," Cook said. "The track kind of suits my driving style. I really like that place. We dominated there last year. We had the field covered almost all day long. It's a good feeling to know you're going back to a comfort zone.

"We're going back to a track we know we ran good at last year, we're bringing back the same truck. There's an essence of a comfort zone heading to Milwaukee."

Doesn't hurt to have an old dog, too.