HAMPTON, GEORGIA -- For nearly 90 laps, Mike Bliss was turning Friday night’s freezing temperatures into a pretty warm feeling for his Key Motorsports race team, but a blown tire and subsequent accident quickly brought back that cold feeling and foiled another solid run by the 22-year NASCAR driving veteran.
When the fifth caution in the American Commercial Lines 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway came out on lap 76 following a 3-car incident down the front stretch, Bliss had his #40 Curtis Key Plumbing/Silestone USA by Cosentino Chevrolet Silverado in 11th place and in position to move into the top 10 for the first time in the race.
“The truck is pretty good,” Bliss would radio back to Crew Chief Barry Dodson at the time after Bliss had pitted for four tires, gas and an air pressure adjustment during the previous caution on lap 58 to help correct a loose handling condition. Optimism reigned within the Key Motorsports pit stall as the #40 was dominating the action through the corners.
Bliss did lose a spot to Ted Musgrave on lap 81 following a re-start and then dropped back to 13th five laps later and suddenly said that the truck was “way too tight”, a concern for Dodson that later turned out to be a flat right front tire. As Bliss slowed to head down pit road to have the bad tire changed on lap 88, the right front tire exploded and Bliss’ machine would make hard contact with the Chevrolet driven by Bill Lester, destroying the right front fender and part of the right side of Bliss’ race truck.
The end result was four lost laps to the field while making repairs in the pits and ending any chance Bliss had in posting his second straight top ten finish of the young 2007 campaign. Bliss would finish the race with a race truck held together on the right side with tape and minus most of a front fender and actually was able to pick up a couple of spots to finish 25th do to some late-race accidents and a solid pass for position by Mike on the Ford driven by T.J. Bell with just three laps remaining.
“We had a top ten truck tonight,” the normally reserved Bliss said, after which Dodson exclaimed, “no, a top 5”.
“We were the best Chevy out there for the longest time tonight and had some of those Toyotas beat as well, and that despite little practice,” said Dodson, alluding to the team’s problems earlier in the day when Bliss’ race truck was dragging the under carriage badly during the only practice session scheduled for the trucks following the rain that pelted the Atlanta area Thursday night and well into Friday morning and shortened the day’s entire practice schedule for three divisions.
“We tried to coil bind the suspension as we had done in California, but the Atlanta track is too rough a place and it just did not work for us. We elected to scrap the rest of practice and begin changing back to a more conventional set-up, and it worked,” Dodson explained. It was evident from the start that the switch was the right move as Bliss quickly worked way up through the field from his 24th starting position and was showing 14th on the board by lap 23.
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Bliss was just outside the top 10 for the first time on lap 36 and was involved in a heated battle for that elusive tenth position on the track with rookie Kelly Bires for more than a dozen laps when Bliss’ race truck began losing grip at the right rear. Dodson engineered wedge and air pressure adjustments on the next two pit stops Bliss would make under caution to correct the problems and it worked like a charm until the blown tire incident.
Bliss was involved with spirited battles throughout the first 80-plus laps with the trucks driven by Brendan Gaughan, A.J. Allmendinger, Nextel Cup regular Clint Bowyer, Bires, Musgrave, Dennis Setzer and Ron Hornaday and was better than most of them. Ironically, Bowyer ended up leading the race late and finished sixth while Gaughan, Musgrave and Bires all recorded top ten finishes.
“I’m really proud of the way Mike hung in there tonight after the wreck, and him making a pass for position late in the race that that with a badly damaged race truck just to help us in the point’s race shows the kind of competitor he is,” said Dodson. “I’m also proud of everyone on this race team for all of their hard work today by making major changes to the truck and having them work for us without the benefit of practice,” he added.
Everyone’s perseverance did pay off in the long run with Bliss only losing two spots in the driver points race to 16th and team owner Curtis Key remaining solidly in the top 20 in owner points for this season that will now determine the guaranteed starting berths for the remaining races in 2007. The top 30 teams in owner points secure those berths.
For the second straight race, Key Motorsports provided a field-filler for the NCTS race by also entering and starting its 44 race truck into the short entry. Ageless Morgan Shepherd practiced and qualified that Chevrolet into the 33rd starting position and finished in that same spot after running just eight of the event’s 130 laps.
Key Motorsports has now started both of its race trucks in all three NCTC races thus far in 2007.
