This might seem hard to imagine, but in
spite of all Mark has been able to accomplish in his NASCAR career,
until this year he had never been able to match what he did at North
Carolina Speedway 10 years ago. Namely, win. In October of 1989, in his
second full season with fledgling team owner Jack Rousch, Mark won his first
career Winston Cup race when he took the checkered flag in what was
known as the AC Delco 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway. He went
on to win 28 more times - all with Rousch, but not one at Rockingham.
But now all that's changed. Armed with a fast Ford and put at the head
of the field following a swift pit stop by his Rousch Racing crew
during a late-race caution. Mark pulled away from Dale Jarrett to
claim the victory in the Dura-Lube/Big Kmart 400. It was the 30th
victory of Mark's career and, of course, only his second on the
1.017 mile Rockingham layout.
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"It was great," said Mark, who won for the
first time in 1999. "It's been 10 years since we won our first race here,
our first Winston Cup race together, Jack and I, and this was another
example of what a great race team that I work with today." "After
that last stop, our car had the right setup," Mark said. "We adjusted
on our car all day and after that last stop, my guys out me out in front
with a fast setup. "That's exactly what we needed to do against all these
other guys. My team won this race for me." "Jeff Burton is the master here."
Mark said. "He's the master at Darlington and he may be the master at
Martinsville and he's awfully good at Richmond, too. These are places
where you can't spin the tires and I'm not very good at that.
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The race ran caution-free, which meant long
periods of green-flag racing until lap 209, when Ernie Irvan and Ted
Musgrave crashed on the backstretch. It was the first of six caution
periods that would take place during the final half of the race, with,
for Mark, the most critical being the fourth. Mark had led just 14 laps
before that caution period began after debris was spotted on the
backstretch on lap 356. At the time, Mark was running second to Burton,
easily the race's dominant driver, with 227 laps led. The leaders dashed
down pit road and all took on four tires. Mark's crew got him out first,
with Jarrett second in a Ford, Burton third, Jeremy Mayfield fourth in a Ford
and Mike Skinner fifth in a Chevrolet. On the restart on lap 362,
Mark broke away from his rivals. He was 1.13 seconds, or about 15
car lengths, ahead of Jarrett when the fifth caution period began on
lap 367 after Elliott Sadler's Ford spun down the backstretch.
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The race restarted with just nine laps
to go, which meant the leaders were lined up single file when the
green flag flew on lap 385. Again, Mark did his thing. He pulled
away from Jarrett, who found himself struggling to hold off Labonte.
When the checkered flag flew, Mark was 1.397 seconds ahead of Jarrett.
Labonte was third, Burton fourth and Mayfield fifth after winning
a duel Skinner. "We worked on pit stops all through December, January
and early February," Mark said. "We'll watch them now and we'll see.
They have been good so far, in fact, they've been awesome. The
guys have worked at it and they deserve today. "But we'll see how
it goes and if we can make them better. You gain and lose when you
pit, that's all there is to it. When you gain, it obviously helps.
And when you lose, you have to make up for it on the track."
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