The 2002 MBNA America 500

As the crisp cool Georgia weather continued to drop throughout the weekend, the Mark Martin

No. 6 Viagra® Racing team turned up the heat on the track. Dealing with a new and untested car, the No. 6 racing team struggled early with the car's setup, being forced to take a provisional and start Sunday's MBNA 500 in 38th position.

However, the No. 6 team once again fought back, relentlessly working with the car throughout the weekend; giving driver Mark Mark a strong enough ride to notch his third top-10 finish of the season. The finish is Mark's 296th career top-10 Winston Cup finish and the 16th of his career at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. He currently stands at fourth in the point standings after four races.

"I don't think you can ask for a better team effort," said Mark. "We raced really well and brought home the top-10 finish. We still have work to do, but we sure have made a lot of progress.

"The car wasn't as good as it could be if we had the chance to work with it some more. We didn't get a chance to test with it and we were behind the eight ball in practice the whole time. The guys worked hard and we found a combination that we could work with and that was actually better than a whole lot of people."

Mark Martin being introduced

Despite being slow off the truck on Friday, the No. 6 continued to improve as the weekend progressed. The progression continued as well when the green flag dropped on Sunday. Mark moved his way into 32nd place by only the fifth lap and into the top 25 by lap 69. Mark was running lap times as fast as the race leaders after improving the car's handling with an air pressure adjustment on a green-flag pit stop on lap 59.

Debris on the track caused the race's first caution on lap 76 and Mark came into the pits to take four tires and fuel. A quick stop of 13.75 seconds allowed the No. 6 to gain five positions and Mark came out of the pits in 22nd position when the field went green on lap 80.

By lap 94 the veteran driver had worked his way into 18th position and by lap 105 Mark was running in the field's top 15. At lap 133, Mark was running some of the fastest lap times on the track as he moved into 13th position.

Mark Martin after Atlanta intro

With the car starting to push, Mark pitted on lap 140 to take wedge from the right rear and take on four tires and fuel. However, by lap 179, the car began to tighten up and when caution was called on lap 186, the No. 6 crew took wedge from the rear, made air pressure adjustments and took four fresh tires. Mark returned to the field in 12th place when the race went green on lap 192.

Caution struck again just 16 laps later and the Viagra racing team came in to take more wedge out of the rear and again add four fresh tires. Excellent work in the pits by the crew allowed Mark to return to the field inside the top-10, at eighth when the race went green on lap 214.

The car began to push and the No. 6 team used a caution on lap 258 to come into the pits to make wedge adjustments and take on tires. The No. 7 car, which held the pit position just to the right of the No. 6 team and was running off the lead lap, came into the pits but elected not to stop. The confusion caused Mark to overshoot his pit stall and the No. 6 team lost valuable time. Still the crew did an excellent job adjusting to the situation, as Mark had to back into the pit stall and the No. 6 returned to the track in 14th place when the field went green lap 266.

Gasoline - $4.50 a gallon

Mark would again pit under caution on lap 290 taking four fresh tires and fuel. He would return to the field in 14th place when the field went green with 30 laps to go. The car seemed to get stronger as the day went on and Mark moved to 11th place by lap 310.

Seven laps later with just eight laps remaining Mark moved into the top 10. He was able to pass two more cars in the final eight laps to secure the eighth-place finish. Tony Stewart went on to win the race.

"Well that's the way to do it," said Mark. "We had the best position at the end that we had all day. We raced a smart race and brought home a good finish at the end."

"The Viagra® team had a good come back," said owner Jack Roush, who saw three of his four teams finish in the field's top 11 on Sunday. "They improved the car all day. The team worked really well and they had good pit stops all day in the pits."

For Mark it marked his 498th career Winston Cup start and his 441st consecutive Cup start. Mark and the Viagra® Racing team return to the track next Sunday at Darlington, S.C. in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400.