The 2005 USG Sheetrock 400

Mark and the Viagra® Racing Team fought to the Mark Martin

very end of Sunday’s USG 400, passing teammate Greg Biffle on the final lap of the 267-lap race to secure their ninth top-10 finish of the season. Mark restarted eighth after the day’s 10th and final caution on lap 253, but just two-fresh tires and battling a ‘tight’ race car he quickly dropped back to 12th. Refusing to give up, Mark stayed in the fight and picked up the two final positions on the final two laps of the race.

“We just weren’t good enough today,” said Mark after the race. “But we hung in there and fought it to the end and came out of it with a top-10 finish and that’s what you have to do on days like this.”

Mark started the day 20th and quickly began his ascent towards the front, breaking inside the top-10 for the first time on lap 52, where he would run the majority of the remainder of the race. The car was strong on long runs, but struggled on restarts, which would prove costly in the caution-filled race.

Running in 10th place, the team opted for two-tires only on its seventh stop of the day after the race’s ninth caution on lap 243. The move put Mark back out in his highest position of the day in fifth place when the field went green on lap 248. Mark dropped back to eighth on the restart just moments before caution was again called on lap 250 and he restarted in eighth when the field took the green for the final time on lap 253. Battling faster cars on fresher tires Mark dropped all the way back to 12th, before making his move to break back into the top-10 on the final lap.

"The car was just so equal to so many, so passing was really difficult,” added Mark. “I lost a few spots on a lot of restarts and that hurt, it took a long time to get those back. That's about what we had. We could've finished better under a better scenario, but it could've been worse. We could've finished worse under another scenario. So, I think all in all it was a reasonable day, considering. It was about a 10th-place car most all day. We just didn't get ourselves in a position to do any better than that.”

The No. 6 over-the-wall team posted one of its best efforts of the season, turning in stops of 13.48, 13.36 and 14.05 seconds on the day and helping Mark to gain a total of 11 spots in the pits during the race.

The finish moved Mark up two spots to sixth in the Nextel Cup point standings. After 18 races on the season, Mark is currently only 28 points out of fifth and 346 points behind the leader. The team returns to action next week at New Hampshire Speedway, where Mark boasts 11 top 10 finishes in 20 starts.