The 2004 Chevy Rock & Roll 400

"I think it might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” said an exasperated Mark as he climbed out of his Viagra® Ford Great Driving by Mark avoids this mess

Taurus just moments after securing a place in the 10-race playoff that will decide this season’s 2004 Nextel Cup Champion. Eight cars went into the weekend’s race with a shot at the final three spots in the playoff. The race was the final piece in a puzzle that saw Mark and the team battle back after being in 15th place and trailing by as many as 123 points only five races ago.

“There has been so much pressure over the past couple of months,” added Mark. “But I can’t tell you how good it feels to be where we are. We’ve had to come back from so many different things and it says so much about this race team that we were able to do that. We’ve battled back time and time again and there were times when it looked like we wouldn’t have a chance and here we are.”

“I just don't recall having to fight as hard as Pat (Tyrson) and I have had to fight, just to get in to something. We just didn't want to be excluded. Now, we're in. I really love these guys on this team. Pat, Wally (Brown), Todd Zeigler, and everyone on this Viagra® Team are really special and I just can’t keep thanking them enough.”

Much like the team’s year, Saturday night’s race was a battle as well. Mark overcame an array of obstacles, including a multi-car accident midway through the race that actually saw Mark’s Viagra® Ford spin a complete 360 degrees around as several other cars crashed around him. In the end the car sustained minimal damage and like so many times before this season, Mark battled back.

“The race got going and it was like, 'Oh, it's not all that great,’” said Mark. “And there wasn't anything wrong with the car. I don't know why it didn't run it like it ran in Happy Hour and in the test, but we raced our guts out. We got a top-five with that car, that's fantastic. Pat Tryson is the man.

“Everybody was racing really hard,” added Mark. “And we sure were lucky not to get a lot of damage in the wreck there on the front stretch. We got turned completely around and fortunately we weren’t hurt very bad. We had to come in and get tires and then we were able to battle back through the field.”

Posting premium performance when it counted, Mark hit his best qualifying lap of the year on Friday, notching a second place start in what would be one of the most important races of the year. Mark went on to post some of the fastest times in happy hour, but a couple of different issues with the car on Friday, including a jumbled A-frame, had the team guessing as to how the car would handle going into the race on Saturday. The team would have to work with the car, as Mark battled for every position. It was never easy during the race, but in the end the Viagra® Team would deliver the finish it needed to not only seal its place in the top-10, but to advance two places to eighth – Mark’s highest position in the points since 2003.

The car started the race handling loose and Mark fell back to fifth place by lap 27. The Viagra?Team used the night’s third caution to make a chassis adjustment, while taking four tires and fuel on lap 53. A stop of 13.74 sent Mark back out in sixth place, as a few of the cars either didn’t pit or took fuel only.

Mark spent the next several laps battling feverishly with the No. 48 car of Jimmie Johnson and the No. 8 car of Dale Earnhardt Jr. for position on the track. By lap 90 Mark had dropped to eighth place, as the car’s handling became tight, despite the fact he was running lap times as fast as anyone on the track. Caution on lap 142 gave the team an opportunity to come down pit road for another chassis adjustment and four more tires and fuel. Mark returned to the track in seventh place.

A series of quick cautions followed that forced Mark and the rest of the race leaders to battle lapped traffic in order to get around the track. Mark had settled into eighth place when disaster nearly struck on lap 178. Two lapped cars running just ahead of Mark got into each other causing a chain reaction of events that would see points leader Jimmie Johnson sustain major damage.

Contact on the front stretch sent Mark’s Ford for a complete spin and cars went in and out all around him. Mark avoided what could have been race-ending damage by only inches as he quickly collected his spinning Taurus. The team came into the pits to replace the flat-spotted tires and to survey the damage. Once the smoke had cleared Mark had dropped back to 16th place – his lowest position of the evening - when the field went green on lap 191.

Mark had moved up to 15th place by the race’s halfway point on lap 200. By lap 216 Mark had moved up to third. On lap 223 he lapped the No. 9 car of Kasey Kahne, who had entered the race nine points ahead of Mark in ninth place. By lap 215 Mark had fought his way past the No. 15 and No. 8 cars for 11th position, before breaking back into the top 10 on lap 266.

Pitting after the accident had put Mark and a couple of other cars on a different pitting sequence than the majority of the field that started to pit shortly after lap 270. As the leaders all came into pit, Mark moved up to as high as second place. The team caught another huge break on lap 292, when the day’s 10th caution was issued just moments before Mark was set to come into the pits. The caution put several of the cars that had already pitted either a lap down or on the tail end of the lead lap, and after pitting for four tires and fuel, Mark returned to the field in fifth place when green-flag racing resumed with just under 100 laps remaining.

Mark dropped back to sixth shortly after the restart, where he settled in and ran the next 90 laps. In the smooth and steady fashion of which he is known for, Mark continued to guide his Viagra® Ford through lapped traffic, while maintaining his position. Mark would break back into the top-five with just over five laps remaining to post his fourth top-five finish in the last five races and his fifth in the last seven.

“Later in the race, I was driving my brains out, I thought I was fine,” said Mark. “They never really gave me a points update until I asked for one. I thought if I finished sixth or so, you know, that nothing could go wrong, but they never told me until I asked, and then all they'd say was that I was okay, we were fine."

"I want to thank the fans,” said Mark. “The Six Pfamily has been incredible, and I appreciate them pulling for us no matter what, when it's good or bad."

With the finish, the No. 6 Viagra® Team moves into the field a team on fire. After starting the season dead last at Daytona, Mark and the No. 6 crew have battled back from seven more major failures to solidly place themselves in the hunt for the championship. Under NASCAR’s format for the ‘Chase for the NEXTEL Cup’, Mark is currently in eighth place, only 35 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.

"We have a lot of good race tracks coming up where we can contend to win,” said Mark. “And regardless, we're going to go out and win us some more races. That's what is really special - making the Chase, number one, and, number two, winning races. We did one of those, and let's go win some races and worry about the points where they stack up."

The team will return to action next week at Loudon for the first of the 10 final races that will decide the 2004 Nextel Cup Champion.