The 2006 UAW Ford 500

Mark and the No. 6 AAA Team went into Sunday’s UAW-Ford 500 with a simple game plan. They hoped to simply Mark in the garage at Talladega

survive early, make their moves late and with a little luck be around at the end and break a string of horrific wrecks at the 2.66-mile superspeedway. The plan worked to perfection, with Mark drafting his way to an eighth-place finish and more importantly trimming off 60 points in the ‘Chase’ for the Nextel Cup. With Talladega out of the way, Mark now moves to his favorite track, Lowe’s Motor Speedway, trailing first place by just 10 points.

"Pat (Tryson) did a great job calling the race with pit strategy and the car handled great,” said Mark. “We were good there at the end. I would have liked to have been contending for the win, but we weren't fast enough to do that, so we made the most of our day. Things are going our way right now. If we can go next week and run like we have in the past at Charlotte, we'll be in good shape."

Mark started 30th and drifted to the back early, running as far back as 42nd by the second lap. He eventually settled in around 36th place running in the second pack of cars and safely behind the main pack of front runners running three wide and 10-rows deep. Running on the smooth new surface of the track, Mark alternated taking right and left side tires on green flag pit stops on laps 33 and 69. He stayed out under green and led laps 110 and 111 to earn five valuable bonus points in the ‘Chase’, before pitting again on lap 112 for right sides.

Mark pitted under caution for the fifth time of the day on lap 131 for fuel only and he came out in sixth position as the field went green with 55 laps remaining, and he would run virtually the remainder of the race inside the top-10. As with any Talladega race the ‘big one’ is destined to happen and it did on lap 137, but this time Mark was running safely in second position and ahead of the multiple-car accident just a few feet behind him.

Towards the end of the race the lead pack would settle in single file with Mark running in the ninth position. The final caution was called on lap 173 and Mark restarted in ninth with just nine laps remaining. He was able to advance one more spot as the leaders Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson wrecked into each other on the final lap and Mark ran on to the eighth-place finish. His first top-10 finish at Talladega since April of 2004.

"We've sure run better than this here, but we hadn't finished here in forever without wrecking,” added Mark. “I'll take it. It was a great day for us and we're still in this hunt for this thing. We needed to wait after this one to talk about it, and it's nice to be there. Now we have to go to Charlotte and hopefully we can run like we know we are capable of and see where that puts us."

Mark and the AAA Team now turn their attention to Lowe’s Motor Speedway, which Mark regards as one of his favorites on the circuit. Mark has four wins, 17 top-fives and 21 top-10 finishes in 43 starts.