The 2004 Banquet 400

Sunday was a tough day for Mark and the Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) Racing team. Mark and the team were optimistic going Mark & Ricky at KC

into the race and had one of the fastest cars throughout the event. Mark drove the Viagra? Taurus to the front of the field, but he suffered two cut right side tires after running over debris midway through the race. The incident put Mark down a lap and although he was able to battle back onto the lead lap, he was never able to make up for the lost track position. The team worked at it all day, but in the end would have to settle for 20th position.

"We had a top-five car there,” said Mark. “We had a good enough car. It was really strong on the long runs and we just got 100 cautions there at the end. We were never going make up the track position that we had to give up. We were going get back to the top 10 if it would have gone green for 50 laps at the end, but it didn't happen."

Mark’s car was the class of the field on long runs. He started the race 19th but moved the Viagra® Ford inside the top 10 by lap 42. By lap 68 Mark was running the fastest times on the track and had powered the car all the way into the field’s top-five. Mark was all the way up to third when the field started green-flag pitting on lap 74. Mark came in on lap 76 running in second place. The team put on right-side tires and added fuel and Mark was running back in sixth position when the stops cycled through.

The car was nothing short of spectacular on long runs, but Mark struggled on restarts all day; a fact that would plague the team down the stretch. On cold tires Mark quickly fell to eighth place, before rebounding and moving back inside the top-five on lap 122. Mark had again moved back to third when the field started to pit under green. Running second the team came down pit road for the second time of the day on lap 133 to take four fresh tires and fuel. A stop of 14.21 seconds sent Mark back out in what seemed to be good position. However moments later the No. 84 of rookie driver Kyle Busch slammed into the wall, causing the brake rotor to become detached from the car. Mark ran over the rotor with the right side to the Mark at K.C., 2004

car, cutting both right-side tires. For reasons unknown to the team, NASCAR hesitated to call a caution and Mark lost a lap before returning to the pits to replace the severely damaged tires.

When all was said and done and the smoke had cleared, Mark was running a lap down in 22nd position. Mark caught a break when caution was called on lap 152, just two laps into the green-flag run, as he had moved his Ford to the front of his lap, making him the ‘lucky dog’ and putting the No. 6 back on the lead lap. Mark was in 22nd when the green flag again dropped. Mark used what would unfortunately be the last long green-flag run of the day to move his Ford all the way back into the top 10, where he was running when the day’s fifth caution was called on lap 192.

The car became too loose on the restarts and that fact combined with four more cautions in the race’s final 50 laps would put an end to the team’s run at a good finish. The No. 6 Viagra® crew continued to work with the car, pitting several times late under caution, but Mark continued to struggle on the restarts. By lap 256 Mark had fell back to as low as 23rd, before regrouping in the final laps to move back up for the top-20 finish.

Mark is currently in fifth place in the Nextel Cup point standings, 150 points outside of first place with six races remaining in the Chase for the Nextel Cup. The team returns to action next week at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.