The 2005 Samsung/Radio Shack 500

Mark and the No. 6 Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) Racing Team waged an up and down battle for much of Sunday’s Samsung/Radio Mark in an 1989 retro look at Texas April 2005

Mark in an 1989 retro look at Texas April 2005

Shack 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, but in the end they found themselves victims of an ill-handling car as Mark left Texas with a 20th-place finish.

Mark ran a special Retro ’89 paint scheme on his Viagra® Ford, and things looked promising for the team down the stretch. A quick 13.40 second stop sent Mark back out in fourth place after the day’s eighth caution on lap 245. The car struggled all day on restarts, and its handling rapidly declined after the stop. With the car handling ‘really loose’, the veteran dropped back to 12th place by lap 257.

After another stop to fix the car’s handling under caution on lap 297, Mark moved his Ford back up to 11th and was gaining when caution was again called on lap 303. The team stayed out and Mark restarted in 11th position. However the car’s handling issue would again rear its ugly head. By lap 310 Mark had dropped to 14th place. He quickly regrouped and moved back up to 12th on lap 316. However moments later a brush with the wall would effectively put an end to Mark’s bid at a top-10 finish. With the car wounded and not handling well, all Mark could do was hang on for the top-20 finish.

“I’ll take the blame for today,” said a disappointed Mark after the race. “I was just trying too much to get us a top-10 finish and I messed up. The guys on this team worked really hard this week and they were just awesome today on pit road. We had problems early, but it looked like we were going to overcome that and post a good finish. I just hate to take away anything from the effort the Viagra® Racing Team displayed today. We’ll just have to regroup now and go try to win Phoenix.”

Mark started 16th, but struggled with the car’s handling from the start. Mark had dropped to 19th by lap three, where he just narrowly avoided the spinning car of Dave Blaney on the day’s first caution. He regrouped and had driven his No. 6 Ford back to 16th place when the day’s third caution afforded the team the chance to come down pit road for four tires, fuel and additional adjustments. A 14.23-second stop sent the Viagra Ford back out in 14th place when green-flag racing resumed. As would become typical on the day, Mark’s car struggled on the restart and he found himself back as far as 24th-place by lap 50.

However the long run afforded Mark the chance to regroup, and move back through the field. He was running back in 17th place when caution number five was called on lap 78. The team came down pit road for four tires and fuel. The Viagra® Team’s best effort of the day, a 13.12-second stop moved Mark up four positions to 13th where he started when green-flag racing resumed. Mark again struggled with his Ford on the restart and quickly dropped to 16th place, before regrouping and calmly powering the car back to 12th, where he was running when caution was again issued on lap 122. Once again the Viagra® team delivered, posting a 13.56-second stop that put Mark back out in striking distance of the top-10 for the first time of the day in 11th place.

Mark broke inside the field’s top 10 on lap 136 and used the day’s longest Mark & Kyle Busch in Texas April 2005

green-flag run to move all the way to sixth place when the field started green-flag pit stops on lap 184. The team came into the pits on lap 188 to take four fresh tires, fuel and make a track-bar adjustment to offset the car’s handling. Another fast stop of 13.19 seconds helped move Mark into the field’s top five, where he was running when the team came into the pits on lap 212 after the day’s seventh caution was called.

Over the course of the next run the car’s handling became too tight and Mark dropped back to seventh position by the time caution number eight was called on lap 240. In yet another stellar performance the Viagra® team turned in the 13.40-second effort that put Mark back out in fourth place and looking like a race contender. However the excitement would be short lived as the handling problems soon kicked in. Mark and the team would battle for the remainder of the race, but after brushing the wall late in the race they would be forced to settle for the 20th-place finish.

Mark dropped two places to seventh in the Nextel Cup point standings, but only one point out of sixth place and just 23 points out of third. The team returns to action next week in Phoenix for the circuit’s first night race of the season. Mark has one win and 13 top-10 finishes in 17 starts at Phoenix. This will be the track’s first Nextel Cup spring event.