2000 Pepsi 400

A seventh-place qualifying effort and a good final practice Mark and Rusty

had Mark Martin feeling optimistic heading into the Michigan Winston Cup race. Martin's car was good as the race began, although he battled a tight condition during the first half of the race. Martin ran as high as third following a two-tire pit stop on lap 125. Late in the race, Mark battled a loose race car and ended up with an 11th-place finish.

"We certainly improved from our 40th place finish in June," Martin said. "Finishing 11th may not seem like much, but at least we were a competitive 11th all day. The car was not perfect, but we did our best and made changes to it all day. This was a good car and we will probably take it to Darlington in a few weeks. This was not one of our best performances at Michigan, but it was far from our worst."

SLICK TRACK RESULTS IN DNQ FOR WINN-DIXIE TEAM:
After rain washed out first-round BGN qualifying in Michigan on Thursday, NASCAR was forced to run only one round of qualifying on Friday morning. As qualifying began, a light mist began to fall. As Mark Martin completed his warmup lap, the mist began to get heavier. He lost control of the Winn-Dixie Taurus in turn two and hit the wall twice. Luckily, Martin was not injured, but with only one round of qualifying, the team was not able to requalify the backup car. Since Winston Cup drives are not allowed provisionals in the Busch Series, Martin was forced to miss the race.

"That was a real shame," he said. "I'm usually the last one to throw in the towel on a damp race track and it got us today. The guys gave me a great car, but we just didn't have luck on our side this time. We'll come back in two weeks in Darlington and show everyone how great this team is."

TESTING AT DARLINGTON:
Mark Martin spent Tuesday testing at Darlington Raceway, in preparation for the Sept. 3 Pepsi Southern 500. Martin's team wanted to take their Michigan car to the test, so they spent all of Monday checking the car over and hammering out some dents, in addition to removing the race engine and installing a test motor. Once at Darlington, the Roush Racing team made three mock qualifying runs, but focused most of their attention on race setups.

"The tires are pretty different than anything we have run here before," Martin said. "They are a new tire, so they are even different from the spring race. This place presents a challenge the way the pavement is. We had a good test and I thought we ran pretty well. I think by the end of the day we were as good as anybody who was there."

Jeff Burton, Ricky Rudd, Tony Stewart and Steve Grissom also tested at Darlington. Martin tested his Cup car, as well as two BGN cars, but Martin has a soft spot in his heart for the Busch car nicknamed "Old Yeller," which features a bright yellow roll cage. It is the car Martin drove to victory at Rockingham and at Darlington in the spring.

"That car was great in the spring at Darlington, so why not take it back?" Martin said. "I don't know if we can win both races in the doubleheader weekend at Darlington since we did all of this testing, but we're certainly going to try."

ON TO BRISTOL:
Mark Martin returns to one of his favorite tracks hoping to find the success he has had there in the past. In 27 career starts at Bristol, he has won twice and earned 14 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes, in addition to six poles. Both of Martin's wins have come in the August race, in 1993 and 1998. After a disappointing 16th place finish in the spring, Martin looks to improve this weekend.

"We qualified 34th so we were forced to pit on the backstretch which hurt us from the start," he said. "We had a car that could have won the race, but once we got a lap down we just didn't have the luck to get it back. We were really good on long runs and could run as fast as the leaders. I wish our finish could have reflected what a great car we had."

Martin's team will run the same car that was so competitive in the spring: JR-82. The car was brand new at Bristol in March, and has run only at New Hampshire since, where Martin brought it home in third.

"I have a lot of faith in this car," he said. "It's been very good at both of the races we've run with it so far this year. I always enjoy racing at Bristol, so I hope this time we can prove what a good car we have by driving it to Victory Lane Saturday night."

BRISTOL STATS:
Martin's 16th place finish at Bristol in March broke a string of 10 straight top-10 finishes at the track. In his Bristol career, Martin has two wins, 14 top fives, 19 top 10s and six pole positions in 27 starts. He has won $907,490 in his Winston Cup career at the track. He won four consecutive poles at Bristol from April, 1995 through August, 1996.


Congratulations, Rusty Wallace, for the win at the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Pepsi 400 in Brooklyn, Michigan.