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20 Mike Bliss |
Cut Tire Slows Bliss's Day |
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Loudon, NH - Looking for some of the magic similar to the what they experienced in June, the #20 team headed to New Hampshire International Speedway for the Siemen's 200. Bringing the same car that dominated at the Milwaukee Mile four weeks earlier, the team hoped for a repeat performance. With rain in the forecast for Friday afternoon, the #20 Team spent most of the morning practice in their race setup. Even though they did not spend time on their qualifying setup, Bliss was still able to turn the fourth quickest lap of the day. Final practice was indeed rained out and the #20 team was confident in their setup. As the cars rolled off on Saturday, the sun peeked out and the temperatures rose to just over 80 degrees. The early racing was furious as the cars slipped around the 1 mile oval. As the tires wore in, lap times picked. After waiting for a couple early cautions, Bliss quickly challenged the leaders and moved himself in the third position. With the teams only received two sets of tires for use under caution, Crew Chief Steve Addington chose his pit strategy carefully. During a caution flag on lap 67, Bliss followed the leaders to pit road. Team Rock Solid performed another one of their outstanding stops returning Bliss to the track the first car off pit road. With several cars choosing not to pit, Bliss restarted 7 th. It did not take him long to start his charge back to the front. After several cautions, Bliss was running second on lap 110. As the car headed into turn one, the back end quickly came around and heavily damaged the #20 Rockwell Automation Chevrolet. Bliss took his battered car to the garage where to team made extensive repairs. Bliss was able to return to the track where he finished the race in the 32nd position, 43 laps down to the leader. "I felt something start to vibrate just as I crossed the start/finish line," commented Bliss following the race. "My first thought was it was something in the engine, but as I started to turn the corner, it just came around on me. Turns out we ran a piece of debris, probably from the last caution. It is a shame because we had a really good car." |
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