Dover Downs Speedway Dover, Del. September 26, 1999

For Mark, the summer of 1999 has been an extremely tough one - personally and professionally. On the personal side, Mark had an uncle and one of his best friends pass away. He has continued to drive with excruciating pain in his back, and he still misses his father, who died 13 months ago in a plane crash, "really bad." Professionally, various obstacles thwarted his search for victory lane, and he found himself having to compete with painful injuries suffered in a crash during the final practice session for the July 3 Pepsi 400 at Daytona. But the months of frustration, pain and heartache ended briefly at Dover in victory lane when Mark finished 1.145 seconds ahead of rookie Tony Stewart. Even though it was the 31st win of his Winston Cup career, it was only his second win of the season, with the other coming in February at Rockingham.

"I can't tell you how bad I wanted to win that race," Mark said, who collected $115,710 for his efforts. "The closer it got...I desperately wanted to win that race." "We have run well this summer, but we haven't been a contender to win. We've been a top five, though, almost every race, but I haven't felt I had a car that was capable of going out and, if everything went our way, we could go out there and pull one off; and everything kept going our way. The car was just incredible."

Mark led seven times for 161 laps, including the final 52 in the 400-lap race on the 1-mile track. His victory was his third straight in Dover's fall race and provided Ford with its 12th win this season. Overall, Ford now possesses 497 all-time NASCAR Winston Cup wins, and leads the 1999 manufacturers standings with 188 points to Chevrolet's 167 and Pontiac's 156.

Mark's win also led a Rousch Racing stampede in the top 10. Newcomer Matt Kenseth finished fourth, Jeff Burton took sixth, and Chad Little walked off with seventh. Rousch Racing drivers Kevin Lepage and Johnny Benson also produced top-20 finishes, with Lepage taking 13th and Benson 18th. Roush described having four cars in the top 10 as "wonderful." "I feel like we are back," the multi-team owner said with a smile. "Of course, Mark is the leader of the pack. The fact that we didn't break an engine part, we didn't break a drivetrain part is wonderful. It seems like many of our good runs, by either Mark or Jeff (Burton), have been marred in some way this year. So we got through all that. In fact, we had six cars that we really control in the top 18 and two more that we build engines for (Brett Bodine and Elliott Sadler), so we had eight engines that ran all day without a problem, which we're real proud of."

Mark's win returned him to second in the Winston Cup point standings, 257 behind leader Dale Jarrett. The only other positions to change in the top 10 were ninth and 10th. Ward Burton, with his 11-place finish, exchanged places with Terry Labonte, who placed 27th. With seven races remaining, Burton is ninth and Labonte 10th in the standings. Points, however, weren't important to Mark. "I didn't care about the points. All I cared about was winning that race." he said. "That's what I wanted really bad for the whole team. They've kept their chin up. They haven't acted one bit different than they did last year when we were winning a race every few weeks, so this was good."

During the race, Mark continuously ran in the top five, but his primary contenders changed throughout the event. In the beginning, it was Stewart and Rusty Wallace. Stewart led three times for 14 laps in the first 33 circuits, while Wallace led four times for 22 laps in the first 100. Mark snatched the lead for the first time on on lap 34, but possessed it for only two laps before relinquishing it to Stewart. He didn't lead again until lap 93 when he slipped under Wallace as they exited turn two. Mark then led 18 laps before turning the No. 1 spot back over to Stewart. Near the race's halfway mark, however, the event's complexion changed. Mark put Stewart a lap down on lap 199 and Jarrett became the Arkansas native's primary contender. Over the final 143 laps, Mark and Jarrett exchanged the lead five times. At one point, on lap 260, Jarrett led Mark by 4.13 seconds. However, by lap 283, Mark had slashed the margin to two seconds. He finally caught Jarrett and passed him on lap 313, moving to the inside of his fellow Ford driver in turn two and eventually clearing him for the lead in turn three. Without any difficulties, Mark pulled away. On lap 322, his lead was 2.63 seconds, and it stood at 3.88 seconds on lap 333.

"Like I said, when I was running out there today I didn't care about the points, I just wanted to win that race - A Winston Cup race - so with that I'm happy and relieved. These last six months have been sort of a test for me and it's been a little more difficult than usual. It seems like with my race team it hasn't made a difference in the way they treat me, the way they work, or anything that they've done and I'm real fortunate for that."

"But I also want to thank all the fans for what they've done and their support - not only for me, but the whole sport - because this is what I live for is to win races like this. They have made this such a big deal and they have been so kind to me and it doesn't seem to matter to them whether you're winning or not, they seem to give me the same support, so I thank them for that."