BRISTOL, TN - Coming off their first top ten finish of the 2004 season, the #20 Spectrum Controls / Rockwell Automation Team looked to go to Bristol Motor Speedway and continue building on that momentum. A late race misunderstanding dropped Bliss from 2nd place to 17th position, the last car on the lead lap.=

Friday was spent focused on practice and qualifying. The Spectrum Controls/Rockwell Automation team missed the setup and Bliss was scheduled to start 23rd for the Sharpie Professional 250. After a solid final practice, they were comfortable the #20 car was prepared to charge to the front.

"We just missed it on the qualifying lap," commented Mike Bliss. "The car was way too tight. I really thought we should have been two tenths quicker than we ran. At this place, two tenths feels like two seconds. I still think we have a good race car, we just need to be patient in the race."

Continuing to hammer patience in his head, Bliss prepared himself for the race. The early part of the race would see Bliss gain some early positions as worked his way up from the 23rd position to 17th by the time the third caution flag flew. Bliss followed the leaders down pit road for his first stop of the day. Reporting the car tight, Crew Chief Steve Addington chose to put one round of wedge in the right rear along with four new tires & fuel. The pit crew was on top of their game and returned Bliss to the track in the 13th position.

The race restarted and Bliss continued on the move. By lap 132, he worked his way into the top 10 and continued to set his sights on the cars in front of him. As Bliss moved up through the field, he was running 8th when the caution flag flew on lap 173. The crew provided a spectacular stop returning Bliss to the track in 3rd position.

With the final adjustments, Bliss was ready to run to the end. Within 10 laps, he had run down the second place car of Kevin Harvick. Another 10 laps later, he completed the pass for second and now had his sights set on the leader. As furious racing took place behind the leaders, several cautions slowed the field before the end of the race. "We really needed the race to continue green," commented Crew Chief Steve Addington. "Our car was really good on the long runs opposed to the short runs. This team worked really hard on this car to get it better from qualifying & it showed on race day."

On lap 248, the final caution of the day would fly. Although the caution flag was for an incident in turn one, several additional accidents took place behind it. Bliss would take the white flag and caution flag together and continued for the final circuit at Bristol. As he approached the front stretch, noticing the mess of cars and debris, Bliss chose to drive down pit lane. At that point, he was flagged to stop by a NASCAR official. This move would drop him to the 17th position.

"It was probably not the smartest thing to do," commented Bliss following the race. "I was so happy to bring a car back from Bristol without a scratch on it, I did not want to risk driving it through the mess on the frontstretch. When I brought the car onto pit road, the official flagged me down & that was when I learned about my mistake. It is a tough pill to swallow, but today we showed how strong this team is and this will not be the last time you see this car up front."