The 2001 Dodge/SaveMart 350

Mark and the Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) team earned another top-10 Mark at Sears Point

finish Sunday as Mark showed his amazing road racing skills. Mark nearly drove the wheels off the car racing up from his 38th place starting position.

After he got off course during his one qualifying lap on Friday, Mark was forced to take a provisional. The poor starting position also gave him a pit stall on the famed "Gilligans Island" where eight teams are forced to pit across from pit road, which is a huge disadvantage. Since there is no pit road speed, NASCAR officials hold the car for 18 seconds after the stop to even out the field.

The team spent Saturday working on the car and planning their strategy for the race. Mark was off to a great start after he gained five positions on the first lap of the race. He continued to work his way up through the field and was up to 19th by the first pit stop on lap 33. The team made a few adjustments to the handling and Mark returned to the race in 23rd place.

Jimmy Fennig and Jack Roush planned to pit on lap 70 knowing that would be their final pit stop of the day. They were hoping many of the other teams could not get such good fuel mileage. Mark was up to 14th place when he pitted for fuel and his final adjustments of the race. As the field continued to cycle through green flag pit stops, Mark moved up closer to the front.

Mark was in 15th place with 25 laps to go and was determined to get a top-10 finish for the team. He kept gaining and running laps as fast as the leaders. With two laps to go, he moved into 10th place to finish the race. Mark remains 13th in the Winston Cup point standings, but only trails 10th place by 57 points.

"We gave it all we had today," Mark said. "I put us in a hole to start the race and I was determined to get us out of it. The guys gave me a great car and we kept working on it all day to make it better. We spent a lot of time working on our strategy for this race and I think our poor qualifying on Friday made this team stronger. From what we learned today, next year will be even better."

"Mark was tough all day," said Roush. "He did the best he could and ran from the back. We had a strategy in place that could have helped us if a caution had come out at a particular time, but of course, that didn't happen. We did everything we could and the Viagra® team ended up 10th."

Next weekend the Winston Cup teams take their last weekend off before the halfway point of the season. Then the teams will return to Daytona International Speedway for the Pepsi 400 on Saturday night, July 7.