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| Mark's crew makes a quick pit stop to keep him near the front. Mark took the lead late in the race and held on to win the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 300. |
Mother Nature has been mighty kind to
Rousch Racing in the last couple of weeks. First, the skies opened up
as leader Jeff Burton slapped the turn-two wall in the March 21
Winston Cup event at Darlington Raceway. Burton's rain dance worked,
and worked well. The race was called and he won, despite substantial
damage to his Ford. Then, in the Coca-cola 300, Mark took the lead with
a gutsy three-wide move into the first turn a minute or so before the
rain hit. It didn't take long for NASCAR to figure out Mark - and
Mother Nature - had won again. The win was the 36th of Mark's Busch Series
career, the most in the division's history. It was Mark's second win this
season, and second at the 1.5 mile facility. Mark won the inaugural Busch
Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in April 1997.
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| In addition, team owner Jack Rousc scored his 200th victory as a car owner in Winston Cup, Busch Series and various road racing circuits. Mark and Jeff Burton had been at the right place at the right time. That's the nature of this game. |
| Matt Kenseth finished 18th, one lap down. That, unfortunately for Kenseth, is also the nature of the game. He'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. |
| Mark took Kenseth under his wing shortly after the Wisconsin native came into the Busch Series 1997. Kenseth helps Rousch Racing teams during testing, and the organization will have some sort of involvement when he moves to the Winston Cup circuit next year. |
"It wouldn't have mattered if I had a million
laps around Texas Motor Speedway... I still couldn't have run with Matt Kenseth."
Mark admitted. "I am a pretty big Matt Kenseth fan. I was more
disappointed to see him have trouble than I was elated to win the race.
I am a big supporter of his. Almost before he'd stopped his slide
through the grass, Kenseth was apologizing to his crew on the radio.
He'd made a mistake, and he knew it.
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| Ironically, the same caution that bit Kenseth very nearly ruined Mark's afternoon as well. Mark had already dropped onto pit road when Krough and Atwood got together. He roared by his stall without stopping to remain on the lead lap. "We had to pit shortly after Matt pitted," Mark said. "I wanted to come and it was time. So we did it, and as we were coming down pit road, the caution comes out. So it's a break for us, because that means we can go back out and stay on the lead lap. "Basically that's all I know. We managed to stay out on the lead lap. We had a fast car and we were able to stay out there. We had a real fast car, but nothing to compare to with Matt. |
Jeff Green dove under Mark between
turns three and four on lap 151, and almost simultaneously behind
them, four cars wrecked off the second corner. When the green flag came
back out five laps later,Mark split a lapped car to the inside and
Green to the outside as they hurtled into the first turn. "I'll
tell you what...you put a bunch of hungry wolves on the inside lane here
for their lap back and it becomes pretty exciting to get around here,"
Mark said. "I think the only good place to be on the restart, if
you are on the lead lap, would have to be leading the race. I tried
second, third and on back behind that. None of those ever worked for
me today. Almost as if on cue, when Jeff Purvis, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Jeff Gordon and Mike Skinner spun between the first and second turns
on lap 157, the rains came. The field ran a few laps under caution,
then sat idle under the red flag for about 30 minutes before NASCAR
called it a wash.
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"It seemed like after we could get
cleared out a little bit, we could get some distance. I had a great car.
Our car worked well, and had a tremendous engine in it today.
The straightaway speeds on that car were outstanding. We just had
to be careful on the restarts on the outside because there was an
awful lot of racing going on out there." It took Mark 1 hour,
55 minutes and 8 seconds to complete 163 of the event's scheduled
200 laps at an average speed of 127.417 mph. There were 11 lead changes
among five drivers and six cautions for 30 laps.
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