The 2006 Bud Shootout

The 2006 Nextel Cup season is officially underway, with this year’s The 2006 Ford Fusion

version of the All-Star Budweiser Shootout in the books. Making his debut in the new No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion, Mark ran as high as third and was as high as fourth on the second to last lap of the race, before being shuffled back to seventh where he finished the non-points event.

“It was a good run,” said Mark. “It was a great first outing for our AAA Fusion, and I'm pretty excited. I know the track wasn't slick and it's cold today. Our 500 car will be better than that and I can tell from what I see that we've got a good racecar for Sunday. We came to try to win the 500 and from what I saw there with what we've got lined up we might just do it."

Mark and the team saw several close calls with Mark narrowly avoiding the day’s first accident when the No. 25 car got loose and came up the track causing a multi-car accident that saw six cars affected. Mark just narrowly escaped becoming the seventh. The scares were far from over, as Mark made the save of the race after getting tapped by Kyle Busch on lap 22. Mark again avoided the accident, but a chain reaction occurred that involved several cars.

"That was the roughest race I've ever run at Daytona,” added Mark. “I can't believe the car doesn't look beat up like Martinsville. Man, I was bouncing around like crazy. It had to be a great race to watch, but one of these days soon I'm going be sitting in a rocking chair watching these things myself.”

Mark started the event 13th based on a random draw held on Thursday. He spent the first few laps shuffling in and out of the draft, briefly falling back to last place, before regaining momentum and moving back to 13th of the 21 car field by lap 13. After the first caution he stayed out and moved up to eighth place on the restart after the break on lap 20.

By lap 21 Mark had hooked up in a three-car pack that was pulling away from the field. After avoiding what seemed to be a sure wreck on lap 22, Mark restarted after the caution on lap 27 in fourth. Three laps later he was shuffled out of the draft and fell back to 12. He had moved back to eighth when the team came down pit road on lap 48 for the required green-flag stop. After a 15.33-second stop Mark returned back to the field in 10th place, before working his way through the draft and back up to fourth place by lap 53.

With cars running two-wide around the track, Mark rotated in and out of the top-five for the next several laps and he had his AAA Ford Fusion in eighth place when the day’s final caution was called on lap 57; setting up a green-white-checkered finish. Mark opted not to pit and restarted the final three lap dash in sixth place. He moved up to as high as fourth on the next to the last lap of the race. He finished the final lap three-wide with Roush teammates Matt Kenseth on the inside and Jamie McMurray on the outside, as he crossed the finish line just behind Kenseth in seventh place.

After a two day break in the action, Mark and the team will return to action on Wednesday as they prepare for Thursday’s Twin-150’s, as it all builds up to Sunday’s famed Daytona 500.