Ray Cook being interviewed by Southern Nationals announcer Michael Despain
Few, if any, have taken on more roles in dirt racing than Ray Cook. The Brasstown, NC native is the leader of the Southern Nationals family of regional racing tours(Southern Nationals, Spring Nationals & Southern Nationals Bonus) as well as the owner and promoter of the Tri-County Race Track located in his hometown. He also runs the American Racer South distributorship for racing tires. But perhaps his first love in the sport came as a driver. However, his multitude of other responsibilities tends to keep him from occupying the driver’s seat on a regular basis.
This past Saturday, Cook made his 2018 racing debut when he entered the Iron-Man Late Model Series race at the Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn. And not only did he enter the race, but he was fast.
Cook was the fastest of the twelve cars that signed in for competition which placed him on the pole for the 35-lap feature. The No. 53 Capital Race Car shot to the early lead and showed the way for the first seven circuits. However, a drive shaft failure ended his day early.
But Cook was encouraged by his team’s early season showing.
“I’m just thankful to Ricky, Robert and Morgan Wynn for letting me drive this car,” Cook declared in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “I’ve got to go test last Tuesday at my track when it finally quit raining for a couple of days so we were able to go do that. We’ve been doing our homework over the winter with different people and trying to get better but this was our first race.”
The 46-year-old racer believes he knows the source of his car’s problem on Saturday.
“We’re proud that we qualified good and were racing good until we had a drive shaft failure,” he reported. “It was probably just fatigue and no anybody’s fault. The last race we ran at the end of last season was probably the roughest race I’d been in for a while and it was probably remnants of that.”
With his reduced driving schedule compared to many other racers, Cook and his team rely on the help of others to stay on top of the latest speed secrets.
“I’ve got to thank Marshall Green with Capital Race Cars and American Racer Tires and a lot of people who were trying to help me even though I don’t race that much,” Cook pointed out. “We try to stay on top of it and it helps with our series by trying to stay up with what everybody is doing.”
But there is more to being successful on the track than just keeping up with the latest technology. The driver says that he may have some work to do in one important area.
“The biggest thing is staying in shape,” Cook confessed. “I’m as bad out of shape as I’ve ever been and the track was pretty demanding. I’ve been drinking Mountain Dew all day, which is about as stout as it gets for me. I told Marshall before the race that I hoped I could make it 35 laps. That’s the biggest thing because you’ve got to run these cars as hard as you can for every lap. That’s why they’re so fun to watch and so fun to drive.”
Ray Cook’s No. 53 Wynn Motorsports car
With Dirt Late Model racing being as it is today, cars and drivers are asked to do more than ever to run up front. While Cook admits that this type of racing can have its positive points, he hopes a day will come in the near future that will see the driver, not just the car, play a major role in determining the race winner.
“That’s one thing that helped us get the pole is that I was able to go through one and two without lifting,” Cook explained. “I thought I could do it on the first lap then on the second lap I said let’s see what happens here. And there’s people doing that everywhere we go. That’s just a product of the racing we’re doing now and that’s one reason I’m wanting to do a few things with my series to hopefully fix it to where you have to lift off of it once in a while. I think it’ll help the racing but these cars are fast and they’re fun to drive.”
