Mark capped off a strong weekend at Daytona International Speedway
with a 10th-place finish
in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400. Mark started on the outside of the front row in the
second position, after posting his best qualifying lap at Daytona since 1990.
The veteran’s No. 8 U.S. Chevrolet was fast during the race, running the majority of the
400-mile event inside the top five. A barrage of cautions littered the final 20 laps of the
race, hurting Mark’s chances for a top-five finish, but the Dale Earnhardt Inc. veteran was
able to avoid several accidents and move on to the solid top-10 finish.
“That was a really strong effort by this No. 8 U.S. Army Racing Team,” said Mark. “These
guys gave me a great car tonight and I’m really sorry that I wasn’t able to give them a better
finish than this. We just got hung out there that one time and then there were so many
accidents that we were never really able to get back to the front where the car was more
than capable of running.
“There at the end, it was just caution after caution and we were pretty lucky to be able to
avoid all of them. I would have liked to have given this team and everyone at DEI a little
better result. This was easily a top-five car, and this was really a great effort by this
team tonight.”
Mark, who ran virtually the entire race inside the top 10, fell back to 15th early after
getting trapped leaving his pit box after the first stop of the race. However, one of the
best restrictor-plate drivers in NASCAR history, Mark patiently worked his way though the
draft, powering his No. 8 Chevy all the way back up to second position by lap 55.
He had his No. 8 Impala SS running as high as fifth with only four laps remaining in the
event, but lost ground just before the 10th caution on lap 156. With the majority of the
cars on older tires and with the race having seen six cautions in the final 30 laps, Mark
was able to patiently avoid several multi-car accidents and move to what was his 17th career
top-10 finish at Daytona International Speedway.
Mark and the No. 8 U.S. Army/Dale Earnhardt Inc. Team will return to action next weekend at
Chicagoland Speedway where Mark has never won, but does boast three top-10 finishes in seven
career starts.
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