Race Review

In a weekend that the Rockwell Automation/Spectrum Controls  team would like to forget, Mike Bliss and his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates fought through a tremendous amount of adversity to finish 30th in the running of the Hershey's Kisses 300 at Daytona International Speedway.

During the early practice sessions on Thursday, crew chief Steve Addington had the team focused on qualifying runs. Bliss would take the #20 car out on the track for just two laps before bringing it back to the garage area for adjustments. Bliss was the first car on the track, and it was certainly evident that he was lightning fast. Once the first of three practice sessions for Thursday was over, Bliss posted the 2nd fastest speed among 54 drivers. In the second practice session on Thursday, Bliss was 9th fastest and in Thursday's final practice, Bliss again was 2nd fastest.

On Friday morning, the Busch Series teams prepared to qualify and Bliss was the 23rd car on the track. High winds caused everyone to lose some speed from Thursday's practice times, and Bliss finished his qualifying lap as the 6th fastest car. With 31 cars still left to qualify, only David Stremme bumped Bliss, thus the Rockwell Automation/Spectrum Controls  team ended the session with a 7th place starting position for the season opener.

Friday afternoon the teams were allotted two practice sessions to fine-tune their cars in race trim. In the opening practice Friday afternoon, Bliss blended into a pack of eight cars and began working the draft. Just three laps later as Bliss followed Michael Waltrip and polesitter Martin Truex, Waltrip lost his left rear tire going into Turn 3. Bliss immediately hit the brakes to avoid the spinning Waltrip, but rookie Paul Menard did not get slowed down quickly enough and clipped Bliss's left rear quarter panel. Bliss drove his car to the garage area for the team to survey the damage, and Addington and his crew immediately began making repairs to the car. Unfortunately Bliss was unable to practice for the remainder of that session. The team worked feverishly to make repairs to the car so Bliss could practice in the day's final Happy Hour practice, and Bliss looked very strong in the draft. He communicated that the car was very stable and neutral in the corners, not too tight or too loose.

With rain showers looming, the green flag waved on Saturday before a huge crowd at Daytona. Starting on the inside of the 4th row, Bliss worked the low line in the early stages of the race. All 43 cars were stacked up two-by-two through the field while the crowd watched intently from their feet. After three laps the high groove was working much better than the low groove and Bliss had fallen back to 18th. With Paul Menard holding up Bliss' progress, the #20 driver made a move to the high side around Menard on Lap 5 and immediately moved up the leaderboard. Bliss was 14th after Lap 6 and back in the top 10 after Lap 7.

The top 10 cars slightly pulled away from the rest of the other drivers, but their lead would not last long as they went back to side-by-side racing on lap 8. Bliss went back to the low groove and went three wide underneath Robby Gordon and Kenny Wallace. Wallace passed Bliss back and Bliss remained 10th at lap 9. On lap 10, the three leaders were running single file, but a 23-car pack was drafting two-by-two behind them with Bliss mired in heavy traffic.

In nearly every restrictor-plate race at Talladega and/or Daytona, a huge wreck will collect several cars due to the tight racing under NASCAR's rules package. Drivers refer to the inevitable wreck as the "Big One".

Well, on lap 12, the "Big One" happened. The eight-car pileup was

triggered when Bliss got a great run as he exited Turn 2. With a rather large gap between Mike Wallace on the low side and Jason Leffler on the high side, Bliss aimed his car for the opening. As he closed the gap, the hole between Wallace and Leffler closed and Bliss lost the air off his spoiler sending the rear end of the car around in the middle of the track. Bliss's #20 car suffered significant damage to the entire right side of the car with heavy damage to the right rear. Other drivers involved were Joe Nemechek, Leffler, Menard, Johnny Benson, Kasey Kahne, Wally Dallenbach and C.W. Smith.

While the team began cutting pieces from their damaged car, rain showers moved into the area. NASCAR kept the cars on the track under the caution as they hoped for a break in the weather. The Rockwell Automation/Spectrum Controls crew continued to make repairs when NASCAR elected to red flag the event at lap 31. Unable to continue work on the car, the team had to wait for NASCAR to lift the red flag and resume racing. The rain continued to pound the Daytona area, and NASCAR officials were forced to postpone the finish of the race until Monday morning.

On Monday the team finally had Bliss back on the track. They focused on just completing laps, and the perseverance paid off. Bliss started the race Monday morning in 40th place, but advanced his position by 10 spots to finish 30th. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won his third straight NASCAR Busch Series race at Daytona, while Johnny Sauter, Robby Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top 5.

Quotes

"This was obviously not the start we were looking for, but I am awfully proud of how this team fought so hard to get our car repaired so we could get back out there and gain some points. I feel terrible for everyone at Rockwell Automation and for the other teams that suffered damage during that incident. We can't wait to go to Rockingham and put Daytona behind us. Our team performed well at the Rock last year, and with the addition of Steve Addington, we are confident that we will start to get some positive momentum going for us." ? Driver Mike Bliss

Crew chief Steve Addington has a very impressive track record at Rockingham over his last 10 NASCAR Busch Series starts. He has one win, five top 5's and seven top 10's in those 10 races. "Everyone puts such a big emphasis on the race at Daytona, but we need to remember it is just one race. We will be fine. We have got great power under the hood, a great group of guys at the shop building these cars and one fast driver. The real season starts this weekend at Rockingham. I wish we could unload our car and race it today." ? Crew chief Steve Addington