The 2001 Global Crossing at the Glen

Mark started Sunday's second and final road course race of the The 6 car

season in 15th place. He took a conservative qualifying lap on Friday after being forced to take a provisional at Sears Point earlier this year. Mark decided it would be better to take it easy and get a solid starting position rather than take a chance of going off course and starting in the back.

Mark began to work his way forward and had the Viagra® (sildenafil citrate) Taurus in ninth place when the first caution of the day came out on lap 19 when the pole-sitter, Dale Jarrett, lost his brakes and spun out. The team did not pit since they had worked out fuel mileage strategy before the race began. By pitting later in the race, they could finish the race with only two pit stops. According to schedule, Mark pitted on lap 29. The crew made air pressure adjustments to his new tires since the car was a bit too loose. Since half of the field pitted during the first caution, Mark was behind them in 26th place after the stop.

The car was handling better, but now it was a bit too tight. Mark used his road racing skills to move up through the field again. He was as high as fifth before he pitted for the final time on lap 58. The team knew they could make it the final 32 laps without pitting for fuel again. They hoped that more teams would have to stop a third time, but unfortunately everyone made it on two stops.

With 25 laps remaining in the race, Mark was up to 13th place. On lap 68, Mark crossed the start/finish line and headed into the tight right-hand first turn. While he held his line on the outside, Jarrett came around him on the inside and forced him up into a gravel pit. Luckily, Mark did not get stuck and got back on course only losing two positions.

When the race resumed on lap 73, Mark was in 15th place. He tried to pass a few more cars to get a top-10 finish, but two more cautions in the final 10 laps slowed his progress. Mark finished the race in 15th place which maintained his 12th place position in the Winston Cup point standings. He now trails 10th place by 93 points.

"That was a long day," Mark said. "It seemed like one car would wreck in front of me and three cars would pass me. Then another car would wreck in front of me and three more cars would pass me. We just never got the track position we needed. I thought our pit strategy would give us an advantage, but it turned out that a lot of people had the same plan. I'm disappointed with that finish since the whole Viagra® team had high expectations for the weekend."

"Mark made a great effort," Jack Roush said. "He had a bunch of wrecks that happened around him. We never got the track position worked out the way we wanted and our cautions didn't come where they might have helped us. We just weren't able to move up."

Next weekend the Winston Cup series returns to Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.