Gateway success comes from experienced hand

There's never been a first-time Truck Series winner at Gateway International Raceway and Saturday's Copart 200 (2 p.m. ET, SPEED) isn't likely to crown one.

The 1.25-mile track is that difficult.

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Six of the Madison, Ill., facility's previous winners are series champions, including defending winner Ron Hornaday. The six -- Hornaday, Johnny Benson, Greg Biffle, Todd Bodine, Ted Musgrave and Jack Sprague -- own all but three of series' 14 season titles.

Gateway's 10 winners (in the track's first 11 events) boast a combined 159 victories.

The track's degree of difficulty is compounded by a pair of tight turns, 1 and 2, coupled with the more sweeping third and fourth corner.

"That makes it definitely one of the tougher ones -- Daytona being the hardest," said Benson, currently a SPEED TV analyst and the 2007 Gateway winner. "People who win there have an understanding of compromise."

Bodine, the Gateway winner in his 2006 title year, likes the track because there's no one right way around.

"You can make your truck do different things," he said, "but you've got to have everything right -- strategy and pit stops. And the fewer trucks you have to pass, the better off you are."

Cook, who won in 2002, likens a lap at Gateway to laps at two different tracks. "[Turns] 1 and 2 demand patience and finesse while 3 and 4 you barrel around them like there's no tomorrow," he said. "Mentally, you have to approach each one differently."