The 2001 Pennsylvania 500

Mark had another successful weekend at Pocono Raceway after Mark running upfront

qualifying in third place on Friday and earning a seventh place finish on Sunday. Mark took a new Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) Taurus to Pocono and was pleased with its results.

Mark was strong early in the race, although the car was tight. He ran up front with the leaders and led a few laps himself before his first green flag pit stop on lap 38. The crew made air pressure and wedge adjustments to free-up the car and Mark returned to the race in third place.

The adjustments to the car did not work as well as the team intended, so they used the next pit stop to reverse the previous changes on lap 108. The car was working better and Mark continued to run in the top 10. The third caution of the day came out on lap 144 when Kyle Petty ran out of gas on the track. The Viagra® team had another great pit stop and Mark was ninth when the race resumed with 52 laps to go.

He narrowly avoided disaster a few laps later when a multi-car accident occurred just behind him, which included his Roush teammate Jeff Burton and Winston Cup point leader Dale Jarrett. The leaders did not pit since they had only run two green-flag laps on their tires. Mark was eighth when another caution came out two laps after the restart. Most of the field came into the pits for fuel only since they could make it 41 laps to the end. Jeff Gordon, who led nearly the entire race was the only driver to take four tires. That sent him to the back of the lead lap cars. Mark gained one position in the pits and was seventh when the race resumed on lap 163.

While Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr. swapped the lead ahead of him, Mark maintained his seventh place position to finish the race. Labonte went on to win his first race of the season. The top-10 finish moved Mark up to 11th in the Winston Cup point standings.

"We brought a new car here this weekend and things went pretty well today," Mark said. "I am a little disappointed with our finish since we ran pretty consistently in the top five most of the day. I wish we could have finished a little better, but it was a good day overall. Our pit stops were good and we learned a lot about this new car that should help us down the road."

Next weekend the Winston Cup teams head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Brickyard 400.