Cook gets Bud Pole in bid to repeat at Mile

WEST ALLIS, Wis. -- Terry Cook earned his second consecutive Milwaukee Mile Bud Pole award Friday, taking the top spot for Saturday's GNC 200.

	Terry Cook is looking for his first win of the season. Credit: Michelle Mecha/HSP

Cook toured the Milwaukee oval in 30.001 seconds at a speed of 119.996 mph, edging out Brendan Gaughan, who qualified second at 30.033/119.868.

Carl Edwards, Dennis Setzer and Jon Wood rounded out the top five qualifiers.

Cook is also the defending race champion and is trying to become the first repeat winner of the eight NCTS Milwaukee winners.

On Friday, Cook made only one lap, shutting off his engine after crew chief Rick Ren said by radio that the speed was good enough for the pole.

"I was shocked," Cook said. "Going through (turns) one and two, I thought the lap was going to be terrible."

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Cook is also trying to turn around what has been a disappointing season to this point. After winning four times last year, Cook's best finish has been an eighth at Darlington.

"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."

However, confidence is high for Cook and his team knowing that Milwaukee is such a good track for them.

"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."

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For Gaughan, who won earlier this year at Texas, comfort proved to be a big factor to him, also.

"It is like old home week for me," Gaughan said. "I competed in off-road events all over the state for a number of years and have tons of friends and fans."

Points leader Bobby Hamilton will start 15th Saturday, a fact that may be attributed to, of all things, inexperience.

"I'll be depending on my teammates to help me out there until I get acclimated with the track," said Hamilton, who will make his first career Milwaukee start this weekend.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.