Dover, DE - With two top ten finishes at Dover International Speedway in 2003, Team Spectrum headed to the Monster Mile looking for posting a solid finish to help build momentum towards the second half of the race season. A tight race car would leave the team disappointed as they ran in the top 10 most of the race but was forced to settle with a 19th place finish.

With a 15th place starting position and a top five car during the final practice, the team was sure with patience and a little luck, the #20 Spectrum Controls / Rockwell Automation team was in for a good day. The car looked strong early, but on lap 28 the skies opened up and the race was red flagged for rain. After sitting out a six hour delay, the race was postponed until Monday morning at 11:00 a.m.

When the teams returned to the track Monday, the team was still confident in for a good finish. Although the weather conditions were drastically different from Saturday, Crew Chief Steve Addington was confident in the adjustability that he built in the car. The challenge would be figuring out the mood of the track especially following the 400 laps of Nextel Cup racing that took place on Sunday.

As the race restarted, Bliss followed the leaders to pit road for four tires & some wedge taken out of the car. Most of the teams took either gas only or only two tires, so Bliss dropped from his 12th position back to 21 st . With four new tires, he was confident he could go to front. The move looked successful as he climbed back to 15th in only 10 laps after restarting. This was when trouble struck. As the 21 car made contact with the 27 car, the entire field began to check up and Bliss got into the rear of the 17 car of Matt Kennseth. This damaged the front headlight area of the #20 Spectrum Controls / Rockwell Automation Chevrolet and forced him to turn to the pits for service.

Bliss drove his way back into the top ten where he would remain for most of the race. On the final caution of the day at lap 153, Bliss followed the leaders to pit road. With several cars choosing not to pit, Bliss returned to the track in the 10th position. He quickly worked his way up to 8 th , but in the final 30 laps, the car began to severely tighten up and Bliss started to drop positions. As Bliss dropped almost a second off the pace, he struggled to hold his track position and was forced to settle for a 19th place finish.

"It is frustrating," commented Bliss following the race. "We had a car capable of finishing in the top five of this race and we barely finished on the lead lap. I am sure we had to break something, because we had as much wedge out of the car we could. Traditionally, Dover is known to tighten up, but I don't know if it was the combination of the sun and the amount of rubber on the track, the final run was extremely too tight."