After Brian Tilsley's death, Gail sold the garage to Tom Casey and he installed his son, Mark, to work alongside Kevin Webster, who had been retained as garage foreman. He took advantage of the fact that his dad owned the business, skiving off, leaving early and generally behaving like a spoilt child and eventually Kevin sacked him, though subsequently rehired him and a firm friendship developed between the two of them, with Mark growing up and becoming more responsible.
Mark came up with the idea of taking up banger racing, using the garage facilities out of hours to repair an old car that Mark's mother had given them. Both Kevin and Mark wanted to do the driving once the car was ready for racing and they decided to have a race off at the track to select the driver, but Sally Webster (who had only just passed her driving test) insisted on joining in and won. This wasn't good enough for the boys, who continued to share the driving, but when their backs were turned one day at the track, Sally took the car and a faulty differential caused her to have an accident and break her ankle.
Mark had a string of archetypal dumb-blond girlfriends, but was rather taken with Flick Khan, however the feeling wasn't mutual and things went nowhere, especially after Mark gave Flick a solid gold chain that he found in the back of a car he had been working on. Mark then turned his attentions towards Flick's housemate, Jenny Bradley. At first Jenny wasn't interested, but when Mark's dad gave him the garage for his 21st birthday, the perennial gold-digger decided that it might not be such a bad idea after all. Jenny continued to use Mark for several months (mainly as a taxi driver), before eventually dumping him after someone better, came along.
With the roles reversed Kevin started moonlighting to try and bring in some more money as things were tight at home with a young baby. While working on a car one weekend, Kevin had an accident and wanted Mark to cover it with the garage insurance and when he refused Kevin started bad mouthing him behind his back and so Mark sacked him. Never being fond of hard work and preferring to be a playboy, Mark's garage eventually went bust and he sold the gear to Mike Baldwin at auction for MVB Motors. With Kevin installed as manager Mark asked Kevin for a job but after the way he felt he'd been treated, Kevin turned him down.