NAPA Autocare 500 2000

Mark's 23rd place qualifying effort and 18th place finish made for a long weekend in Martinsville. Mark struggled throughout the race with a car that was not fast enough to be competitive. Tony Stewart won his fifth race of the season at Martinsville, a lap ahead of Mark.

"It was a tough weekend for us," Mark said. "The car didn't handle that badly, it just wasn't fast. I think we will be retiring this car after today. We've got a brand new car to take to Charlotte next weekend, so I'm looking forward to that. Martinsville has never been one of my favorite tracks and I'm pretty glad just to get it over with for another year."

LOOKING FOR THE WINNING COMBINATION:

Mark's Roush Racing team will take a brand new car to Lowe's Motor Speedway this weekend, in hopes of finding the winning combination.

"It is not typical for us to take a car we've never tested," Mark said, "But at this point in the season we really have nothing to lose. We're not in the hunt for the championship, so all of our efforts are focused on winning races. The very best we can hope for is to finish in the top five in points, so we need to go out and try to win everything we can."

Mark's spring race in Charlotte looked to be headed for a top-five finish, until he lost a cylinder with 44 laps remaining. He finished 12th.

"The handling was all over the place in the spring," he said, "But that is pretty typical for the night race. The fall race is usually a bit more predictable since you don't have a drastic change in the weather from the start of the race to the finish. Once we got the car manageable, then we lost the cylinder. It just wasn't our night, but I think Sunday could be our day."

MARK TO RUN FINAL BGN RACE AT CHARLOTTE:

Mark will run the last Busch Grand National race of his career at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Saturday. After the Charlotte race, Mark will have only two races remaining on his "Farewell Tour" schedule.

Tight racing

"I've won six Busch races at Charlotte and I'd like to put one more in the books before I stop racing that car," Mark said. "The Winn-Dixie team set a pretty high goal at the beginning of the year to get me to 50 wins. We won't make that, but we still have a shot at winning half of the races we enter this year. We've won five so far with three more to go. It won't be easy, but it's attainable."

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Mark will start eighth in Sunday's UAW-GM Quality 500 at Charlotte. Jeff Gordon will lead the Winston Cup drivers to the green flag in the race. In Saturday's All Pro Bumper To Bumper 300, Mark lines up fourth -- three spots behind pole-sitter Matt Kenseth.


Congratulations, Tony Stewart , for the win at the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Autocare 500 in Martinsville, Va.