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Halloween is always in October, but Mark,
driver of the Rousch Racing Ford, seems to have experienced it
a little early this year. In the Coca-Cola 600, some spooky things
seemed to happen to his car under a full moon.
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Mark started the 400-lap event from the
seventh-position and felt he had a good shot at scoring his first
career 600-mile victory to go along with three 500-mile career wins
he has scored in fall events.
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Instead, Mark's evening became more
mysterious with each passing hour. Mark initially felt the chassis
he was wheeling on the hot racing surface would become better as the
event progressed. But as the sun gave way to darkness and
track began to cool, his chassis' characteristics became more and
more unbearable.
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A hot track tends to make a car loose,
while a cool surface sends it in the opposite direction. Mark's chassis
wasn't responding to the changes in temperature seen in the
afternoon-to-evening transition.
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"We had our car set up for night and
my car worked better during the day." Mark said. "We were all compromised
up to beat the band for the start of the race and that's when I ran
the best until it got dark. I don't have it(the track) figured out."
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Add to his problems a couple of guys named Jeff
Burton and Bobby Labonte. Both drivers had cars that seemed far superior
to what Mark was driving. The Batesville, Ark., native only led twice for
two laps, laps 66 and 312, and the remainder of the time, he could do
nothing but try to figure a way to keep the leaders in sight. Mark
was so loose at one point he radioed crew chief Jimmy Fennig that
he was having to stay "on the brakes" to compensate for a loose chassis.
Still, Mark was running strong enough to be in the top five due
mostly to his determination for a good finish. With his final pit
stop coming on lap 377, Fennig elected to try something a bit different.
Change two tires instead of four. Two tires would mean better track
position at the end while four probably wouldn't have been enough
to equal the tremendous power of Labonte and Burton. In the end,
the two tires did translate to two positions they otherwise wouldn't
have gained. Mark moved from fifth to third in the final running
order.
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"It worked out great," Mark said. "I
didn't need four tires, I needed for the race to be over, but as it turned out,
we picked up a couple of spots. We were runnimng fifth with
20 laps to go, so it was a great run by the Valvoline team. We
couldn't keep up with Jeff Burton tonight.
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"We didn't have a shot to win, but
we certainly didn't need four tires the way the car had been working.
Our car, not being in the hunt with the 99(Burton) and as far as that
goes the 18(Labonte), the 20(Tony Stewart) or the 88(Dale Jarrett)
there at the end, we were just dropping back more and more and I
didn't have any idea how to make it better. We put two tires on
and went from fifth to third.
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