Jerry Cook Born:  June 20, 1943 Home: Rome, NY   NASCAR Hall of Fame 2016 Inductee Jerry Cook (born June 20, 2026 in Lockport, New York) is a NASCAR modified championship race car driver. He began racing at the age of 13 and won the track championship at Utica-Rome Speedway in 1969. He eventually went to become a six-time champion in the NASCAR Modified series (1971�72, 1974�77). His rivalry with fellow Rome, New York driver Richie Evans is legendary. He retired after the 1982 season with 342 wins. He stayed with the sport, and helped shape the series. Cook served as the Whelen Modified Series' director when it began in 1985, and was NASCAR's Competition Administrator, as well as being instrumental in setting up the NASCAR Truck Series. Jerry Cook takes modified route to NASCAR Hall of Fame January 12, 2016   Autoweek    By Owen Kearns, NASCAR Wire Service   Cook to be enshrined with NASCAR Hall Class of 2016 on Jan. 22 Jerry Cook never intended to support his family driving a modified stock car. It kind of snuck up on the young resident of Rome, New York.   Cook, who built his first modified at the age of 13, took the wheel by happenstance, when his hired driver wrecked two of the race cars he owned. That was in 1963, well before Cook won his first of six NASCAR modified championships.   But Cook soon discovered he had a knack for winning races -- and finishing well enough to cash a decent check when he didn�t.   �Every time I reached into my pocket, it had money in it,� Cook would say later. �So I kept racing.�   And indeed Cook did -- all the way into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, into which he�ll be inducted Jan. 22 as part of the Class of 2016 that also includes Bobby Isaac, Terry Labonte, O. Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner. Induction ceremonies will be live on NBCSN, Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio beginning at 8 p.m. ET.   Cook won modified championships in 1971 and 1972 and from 1974 through 1977. Before retiring at the conclusion of the 1982 season, Cook also posted six championship points finishes of second and two of third. He won 342 NASCAR modified races in 1,474 career starts -- and countless other non-sanctioned events. Cook finished among the top 10 an amazing 85 percent of the time.   Cook joins fellow Roman and career-long modified racing rival Richie Evans in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The late Evans, a nine-time NASCAR modified champion, was inducted in 2012 as the first Hall member whose career wasn�t connected to NASCAR�s premier series. Cook is the second.   �We�ve now finished off the battle of Rome,� said Cook. �For me and  Richie to both be in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, it kind of tops it off.�   Cook and Evans made upstate New York the epicenter of NASCAR modified racing in the 1960s, �70s and �80s. Each driver had his legion of fans -- vociferous on behalf of the merits of their favorite charioteer.   Cook and Evans were respectful of each other and friends off the track, yet as different as night and day.   Evans was the flamboyant one, famous for living life to its fullest with rock 'n' roll music as the race shop�s background noise. A writer calling Cook�s home, however, would find the telephone answered by the driver�s wife, Sue, who would refer him to the backyard garage where the preparing or repairing of Cook�s red cars was quietly taking place.   Ray Evernham, a former modified driver, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship crew chief and television analyst, had this to say about Cook: �Jerry was not a guy who raced on the edge. Jerry won his share, no doubt. But if he didn�t win, he was still going to be in the top five.�   In some years, Cook�s team would run nearly 100 races, at up to 19 tracks of all sizes, shapes and surfaces from New England to Virginia.   Some of Cook�s signature wins took place outside New York and New England. Cook�s first major victory was the 1969 Dogwood 500 at Martinsville (VA) Speedway. He won a trio of 200-lap races at the tough, Bowman-Gray (NC) Stadium quarter-mile between 1977 and 1980.   The closest Cook came to the NASCAR premier series was a Daytona 500 qualifying race in 1973. His car�s engine blew seven laps from the end. Cook, with a wife and two children, took a look at what non-factory-supported drivers were winning and decided to stay in modifieds.   �So that�s why I stuck with what I did best,� he said.   Cook retired after winning the Spencer (NY) Speedway championship in 1982. For more than 30 years, he was a key member of NASCAR�s competition department and was instrumental in the formation of the current NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East.   Cook, 72, was named one of NASCAR�s 50 greatest drivers in 1998. He is a member of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame and New York Stock Car Hall of Fame.               Awards - Inducted in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2009   - In 1989, he was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame   - Inducted into the New York State Stock Car Association Hall of Fame in 1993   - As part of NASCAR's 50th Anniversary celebration in 1998, he was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers.   - NASCAR named him #3 on its NASCAR Modified All-Time Top 10 list.   - He will be Inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2016   Driver Statistics NASCAR Cup Statistics   Year Age Races Win T5 T10 Pole Laps Led Earnings Rank AvSt AvFn RAF Miles LLF DNQ 1973 30 0 of 28 0 0 0 0 0 0 0     ? 0 0.0 0 1 1 year 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0   ? ? 0 0.0 0 1 DNQ data may be incomplete or missing for some seasons. Daytona 500 Qualifying race results Race Cars St Fin # Sponsor / Owner Car Laps Money Status Led 1973 Qualifying Race #2 39   25 07 Miller High Life   (Gil Cramer) Chevrolet 43/50 0 engine          Copyright � 2003 LegendsofNascar.com by Roland Via. All rights reserved.  Revised: 08/05/17 13:31:52 -0400. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. FAIR USE NOTICE: This web page may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This page is operated under the assumption that this use on the Web constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 section 107 of the US Copyright Code Law. Such material remains the copyright of the original holder and is used here for the purposes of education and comparison only. No infringement of copyright is intended. Any text or images that you feel need to be removed please contact me. 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