When the field took the green flag for the
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500, no one was more surprised than Mark.
A heavy rain the night before had washed the rubber off the track, making
it much slicker than is was the day before. It caused numerous drivers
to miss the setup, leaving them slipping and sliding all around the
track. It was a situation that caught the veteran Mark by surprise.
|
"The biggest change was the rubber being washed
off the track," said Mark, who rallied for a third-place finish. "I didn't
know it was going to do that, and it was really bad." "We were in bad shape
at the start of the race. And after the first adjustment, the car was
even worse. But on the long haul, it came back and we managed to hold
on to the lead lap until we got a big change made. Mark, who started 13th,
struggled so badly early in the race that he fell out of the top 20
and nearly got lapped.
|
"We were off at the start of the race, but that
was my fault," said Mark. "The race track was green and we missed it huge. If it
hadn't been for great team work with (crew chef) Jimmy Fennig, I think we
would have gotten a lap down. But we managed to keep it on the lead lap
and get it adjusted and get our track position back." After Mark got his
car adjusted, he he was able to race his way back into the top 10 and
begin working his way back to the front. By lap 175 he was sixth. By lap 200,
he had climbed to fourth.
|
He made up most of his ground during long, green-flag runs, where Mark
usually excels. With no cautions in the final 72 laps, he was able to secure a top five spot.
"We needed long runs," he said. "Our car was decent on long runs,
so there at the end we managed to do pretty good. Once their tires would
give up, we could make a move and move along pretty good. Though Mark
couldn't gain much ground on winner Jeff Gordon and runnerup Bobby Labonte,
he was able to hold off teammate Jeff Burton, Dale Jarrett and Mike Skinner
to finish third.
|
"We couldn't run with those guys," he said
of Gordon and Labonte. "There was a half dozen that were faster than we
were and who we just couldn't run with. But on the long haul, they
would back up and we would keep coming, so it was a real good
finish considering the way it started out. "I feel like we beat a lot
of cars that were faster than we were and I never dreamed we could
run third. At the end, the car was better than it had been the whole
race, and you can't ask for more than that. It was a real good run for us."
|
