The Monte Carlo 400

Mark and the Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) team had a long night under Mark Martin

the lights at Richmond International Raceway Saturday. After starting 19th, Mark told the team the car was very loose at the start of the race. The car got a little better as the race progressed, so the team chose not to pit during the first three cautions in the first 36 laps, since they believed there would be another caution once more laps were on the tires. Once the race went green on lap 41, there was not another caution until lap 94. By then, Mark had dropped back to 39th place and lost a lap to the leaders. He almost regained the lap when this caution came out, but Sterling Marlin never slowed down enough to let him pass. The team pitted on lap 95 and lowered the track bar and made an air pressure adjustment.

The car was better when Mark returned to the race, and the team hoped he would be able to make up his lap if there was another caution soon after a restart. Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity. He ran much of the race as the first car one lap down, and continued to move up as more cars fell out of the race due to accidents.

By the halfway point at lap 200, Mark was up to 29th place. His car was running better and if he had been able to get his lap back, he would have been running in ninth place. He could race with the top-10 cars, but never got the break he needed to regain his lap. The team kept working on the car as the race progressed and Mark's lap times continued to improve.

He was in 23rd place with 100 laps to go. The last pit stop on lap 346 sent Mark out in 21st place after a 15.82-second stop. He fought for position with the other cars one lap down and was able to move up to 19th place on the final lap to finish the race. He dropped to 13th in the Winston Cup point standings, and is now 150 points out of 10th place.

"Well, we finished where we started which was disappointing," Mark said. "The team did a great job all night making adjustments and keeping me competitive. I wish we could have got that lap back because we could have been close to the top 10. We'll just keep trying and one of these weekends it is going to work out for us."

"We probably should have pitted Mark during one of those first two cautions," said Jack Roush. "I think that error ended up costing him a lap and kept him out of contention. We had the potential to run in the top 10, but it just didn't work out for us."

Next weekend the Winston Cup teams return to New Hampshire International Speedway.