The Pepsi 400

Mark and the Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) racing team Mark hopes the rain keeps up since he was in 1st place at the time

made the most of their practice time to prepare for Sunday's race and their efforts were rewarded with a top-10 finish. The team used most of their practice time on Friday to work on race set-up rather than qualifying set-up. Mark qualified 25th, but the team knew that a good race set-up would be a bigger advantage than a top qualifying position.

The threat of rain loomed all day on Sunday and the field ran 10 laps under yellow due to rain before the race began. Mark worked his way up to 18th place before his first pit stop under green on lap 45. The team had great pit stops all day since their slowest stop was done in 14.75-seconds. After the first stop, Mark told the team the car would start off loose and then get tight the longer he ran.

The race continued under green and all of the teams began to make their second pit stop of the day for fuel. Mark's fuel mileage nearly won the race for him when he was the only driver who had not pitted when the caution came out for rain on lap 98. He assumed the lead and still had not pitted when the red flag came out on lap 101. Since the race was past the halfway point, it could have been considered a complete race if the rain continued. The Viagra® team spent the next hour hoping the rain would continue so NASCAR would cancel the remaining 99 laps and Mark would win.

After nearly an hour, the track was dry and the race resumed. Mark barely had enough fuel to make the caution lap back to the pits and actually shut the car off and coasted down the backstretch. The crew changed tires and added fuel on lap 101 and Mark was 15th when the race resumed on lap 106.

The rain had changed the track somewhat and Mark said the team needed to loosen the car up a lot on the next stop. Despite the tight handling condition, Mark continued to move up through the field. He was in 13th place when the caution came out for Ricky Rudd's blown engine on lap 123. The team brought him in the pits to remove wedge from the car. The adjustment worked well as Mark moved from 16th to sixth place within 13 laps. By lap 140, his lap times were faster than the leader. The car began to get too tight again after about 20 laps and Mark fell back a little. The team was looking forward to their final pit stop figuring Mark would be just as strong for the final 20 laps of the race.

They never got the chance to find out what they could do since it began to rain again and NASCAR threw the caution flag on lap 157. The rain continued and they knew the track could not be dried before dark. The race ended on lap 162 with Mark in eighth place. The top-10 finish kept him 12th in the Winston Cup point standings, 101 points out of 10th place. Sterling Marlin won his first race of the year since he was leading when the race was ended.

The #6 waits

"That was the best we've run since we've been here with that last run," Mark said. "I'm happy with that. I'm real proud of these guys for putting us in a position to win a race with the Viagra® Taurus. I'm shocked how fast we ran. We started in 18th and drove up as high as seventh there. That felt great, it kind of felt like the old days. The car felt like a real race car on that last run and it was kind of fun."

"Mark was really good on new tires and if it came down to a sprint at the end he probably could have won," Jack Roush said. "We also could have won on fuel mileage if we could have had the caution for rain before everyone pitted and we could have stayed out again when nobody else could."

Next weekend the Winston Cup teams race under the lights Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.