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December 19, 2007
Terry Cook, Richard Johns to Drive for Wyler Racing
Wyler Racing made their driver lineup for 2008 official today. Joining Richard Johns, who had been previously announced as the driver of the #60 truck, will be Terry Cook, who will race the #06. As a Steve Park fan I know I'm supposed to be disappointed by this announcement but I'm not - I never expected that Steve would get a ride with Wyler even though he had reportedly been talking with them. In addition, I like that Wyler is giving an opportunity to a young driver to race what will likely be a competitive truck, even though one reason they went with Richard is likely because he brought sponsorship with him. I'm also glad to see that Terry is getting another opportunity with a good team, one that might be better than HT Motorsports, who he raced for last season.
Overall, I'm just glad that Wyler Racing is going to have trucks on the track next season since the last thing the Truck Series needs is to lose more teams. After the merger with South Point Racing fell through I feared that it might spell the end for Wyler Racing since they were likely counting on additional resources from South Point financially and otherwise to help their efforts. So it's good to see that Wyler went forward with their plans to field two truck teams next season even without South Poitn and the Gaughans.
As for Steve, he's talked to Wyler Racing about a ride since he was released from the #62 truck at the end of 2005. If they didn't give him a ride the past two years, I didn't think it was too likely he was going to end up with them now even though they had two open rides. A lack of sponsorship, the reason that's commonly cited for why Steve isn't getting rides, isn't the issue here either since Wyler is still looking for sponsorship for Terry's truck, which indicates a willingness to put a driver behind the wheel even if he doesn't bring sponsorship with him. If Wyler really wanted to give Steve a ride they would have put him in the second truck and then searched for sponsorship like they're doing with Terry, or raced the truck with the Wyler Automotive logos on as they did with Jack Sprague in the past. More than a few fans complain that the young kids are "stealing" all the rides from Steve even though (in these fan's eyes) they don't really deserve them. Well, age certainly isn't a factor here since Terry is about the same age as Steve.
So why did Wyler pick Terry for their second truck instead of Steve? Of course there's no way of knowing for sure - for all I know maybe Steve decided that Wyler wasn't right for him after all. But there's two advantages that Terry has over Steve - one being that he raced for another Toyota team last season and when a driver races for one Toyota team that seems to open doors for them with other Toyota teams. The other factor is that regardless of what team or manufacturer he was racing for, Terry raced last season. Steve never got behind the wheel of a car or truck on any of Nascar's three highest levels, and has only raced one race over all - a Camping World East race - in more than a year. I suspect that makes some teams (and sponsors) leery of him. Oh yeah - Terry's also a more accomplished driver in the Truck Series having won six races, four of them in one season (2002).
If things didn't even work out for Steve with a team run by good friends of his, I think it's pretty unlikely that he's going to find a ride anywhere else. I'm sure some will come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons as to why Steve hasn't been able to find a ride, but unfortunately it appears that there's not that much interest in his services - at least from the kind of teams that he says he wants to race for. I hope to be surprised and have Steve show up at testing or peedweeks with a competitive Truck, Nationwide, Cup, ARCA or Camping World East team that he'll go on to win lots of races for. But I doubt it's going to happen. And that's not me being a negative-nellie, "bad" fan who doesn't believe in Steve. That's just the reality of Steve's situation that he doesn't have a ride and there aren't many openings left.
Posted by silverdsl at December 19, 2007 11:21 AM