The 2005 Chevy American Revolution 400

Mark and the No. 6 Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) Racing Team fought to a 15th place finish Saturday night in the Chevy Revolution Chevy AR 400 2005 Richmond

400 at Richmond International Raceway. The finish was Mark’s sixth top-15 finish in 11 races. Mark sits at 10th in the Nextel Cup standings, only 63 points outside of the top five and 218 points behind first.

The team started the race 13th and Mark struggled with his Viagra® Ford’s handling for most of the night. Mark brushed the wall early, but sustained little damage. The team was never able to truly find the handle on the car, but Mark maintained positioning inside the field’s top 20 all evening long, fighting several times to stay on the lead lap and secure the top-15 finish.

“We just weren’t very good tonight,” said Mark. “It was a great effort by the team and they didn’t give up. The car just wasn’t very good and it was hard to drive. We gave it all we had and I’m proud of the guys and we’ll just have to regroup and come back at it next week.”

The trend for the night would be a ‘loose’ handling car early in a run that would become ‘tight’ late. The team worked with the car during several adjustments, but to little avail. Mark was able to fight to as high as 12th position as late as lap 342 of the 400 lap event, but he would be unable to break into the top 10. He restarted in 15th place after the day’s eighth caution on lap 376 and he would be able to hang on to 15th through one more caution and the race’s final 24 laps.

The highlight of the night was the Viagra® Team’s work in the pits that included stops of 13.6, 13.74, 13.59 and 12.75 seconds, gaining the team several positions and securing their place on the lead lap.

The team will take a week off from point racing for next week’s All-Star Challenge at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, before heading into the Coca-Cola 600 the following week at Lowe’s as well.