This weekend, the NASCAR Busch Series headed down to Homestead, FL for the series finale. Although the Series Champion was crowned last week at Darlington, the top 10 in points was far from decided. Coming into the event in the sixth position, Mike Bliss & the #20 Rockwell Automation / JGR Team knew that if they preformed well a top five finish in the Drivers Points Standings was well within their reach.

Starting on the outside of row eight, Bliss was confident that his car was much better than its starting position. As soon as the race started, the #20 car started going towards the front. The race was slowed early for a couple of quick cautions, but by the time the leaders were ready to pit on lap 31, Bliss had climbed to the 11th position. Reporting the car loose and the water temperature rising, Crew Chief Steve Addington called for an air pressure & wedge adjustment while removing a piece of hot dog wrapper from the front grill helped to cool the engine down.

Surprisingly, the leaders would pit 30 laps later setting up the race to be finished on one more stop. The loose condition had gone away and the water temperature problem was solved, the #20 team bolted on four tires and returned Bliss to the track. During the stop, Addington noticed some damage to the nose of the car and had Bliss return to pit road for repairs. "It was too early in the race and we were too good not to take the time to fix it," commented Addington. "We were going to lose some track position, but in the long run this is what we need to do."

The teams settled in for the longest green flag run of the day. Bliss moved patiently from his 35th position to the front of the field. As the laps continued to tick off, so did the positions. By the halfway point (lap 100), Bliss had climbed into the top 20 and by lap 120, he had climbed into the top ten. As the leaders started making pit stops under green, Bliss headed to pit road on lap 142. After a great stop by the #20 team, Bliss was penalized by NASCAR for speeding on pit road. Bliss would have to return to pit road to serve his penalty. To add insult to injury, while serving his speeding penalty, Bliss was assessed another speeding penalty. After all the penalties were served, Bliss was running in the 33rd position, two laps down from the leader.

Bliss would use the next 50 laps to work on getting back on the lead lap, but it was to no avail. As the race was winding down and Bliss was settled into the 24th position when the 12 car of Tim Fedewa drove straight into the rear of the #20 Rockwell Automation Chevrolet. The contact sent Bliss into the wall with heavy damage to the #20 car. The team was able to repair the car on pit road and return Bliss to the track to limp around the final three laps. The 27th place finish was good enough to gain one position in the driver's points standings and finish 5th for the year.

"Today was a shame," commented Bliss following the race. "You try to get on pit road hard and gain as many spots as you can, but I didn' t think we were going that fast. To get two penalties, it is just unheard of. As bad as the day was, we were looking to ride around and just finish the race with car in one piece until we got run over by the 12 car."