Bliss did what was needed to win NCTS title

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Mike Bliss did everything he had to do Friday in the Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to secure his first NASCAR championship in the 2002 Craftsman Truck Series.

Bliss came into the final event of the season with a 32-point lead over Rick Crawford and a 71-point edge over Ted Musgrave. All he had to do was finish in the top five and it wouldn't matter what his opposition did.

In the end his teammate Ron Hornaday won the event and Bliss finished fifth. What was a tight championship coming in ended up that way. Musgrave, who was second in the Mopar Dodge, unofficially ended up 51 points behind while Crawford, who was seventh in his Circle Bar Ford, was 46 behind.

	Mike Bliss finished fifth Friday in the season-ending Ford 200. Credit: Autostock

"What we planned was that we wanted Ron to win and I wanted to win the championship," Bliss said. "We did that (and) it shows how strong this team is."

In the style of a true champion, Bliss proved he had the IWX Chevrolet truck to run in the top five all day.

Bliss won the Bud Pole, but Musgrave led the first 44 laps. Bliss dogged Musgrave for some five laps -- getting his truck's nose out front once for most of a lap before he finally grabbed five bonus points for leading at lap 45.

"I needed to lead a lap," Bliss said. "I was pretty loose and tight at that point (and) I had to be real careful. When you're running with people like Rick (Crawford) and Ted Musgrave, you know you're safe (because) they're not going to do anything bad to you."

When circumstances dictated Bliss pull back and conserve, he did that as well.

"How dumb would I have looked if I had done something bad, right there?" Bliss said of the final laps. "With 20 to go, it was getting kind of dicey with some lapped cars, and (Robert) Pressley was coming up and I didn't need to be in his way.

"It wasn't worth it for me -- I needed to look at the big picture. I needed to force my foot off the (gas) pedal and just point it left."

The epitome of Bliss' reserve came with about eight laps to go, when teammates Jason Leffler and Musgrave banged side-to-side coming off Turn 2 as they battled for second spot. Bliss was right behind them and saw that a wreck there could be catastrophic to his championship plans.

FORD 200 Mike Bliss celebrates his first Craftsman Truck Series title. Play video Ron Hornaday gets his 26th Truck Series victory. Play video  •  Results  •  Standings

At the only restart of the event, with 18 laps remaining, Crawford -- who had fallen off the lead lap when he was the first of the contenders to pit, only to lose a lap down when the race's only caution flew -- passed leader Hornaday to get back on the tail end of the lead lap.

Leffler had taken only two tires and was second and Musgrave, who led a race-high 96 laps, was trying to get around him to resume chasing Hornaday.

Crawford was only able to hold on for a few laps before Hornaday passed him, but if Bliss had wrecked, Crawford would've been sixth and in championship position.

"Somebody else was in front of me and I couldn't see it," Bliss said of the confrontation, "but I was thinking, 'Man, that doesn't make a lot of sense.' The 2 (Leffler) wanted to win a race -- he hasn't won a race all year so I knew he was going to be tough.

"I was underneath the 2 with about 10 to go and it loosened me up quite a bit. I just said, 'Forget it, go ahead Jason, I don't need your spot.'"

Bliss was content, at that point, to simply watch his teammate-for-a-day, former two-time series champion Hornaday waltz off to his first victory since 1999.

"We had a good enough truck to win the race," Bliss said. "But when that 14 (Crawford) came in and pitted early and went down a lap and the yellow came out that changed the whole way I was racing today.

"My spotter, Dave Fuge, said 'We need to win the championship, there's only six trucks on the lead lap, ride it out.'"

	Mike Bliss ended 51 points ahead of second-place Ted Musgrave. Credit: Autostock

Bliss did, and in the end, after leading 12 laps, he was the champion. In some ways, the race epitomized his season, in which his trucks were virtually always competitive and rarely faltered.

"We'd break pushrods and rockers and finish 10th -- that's the year that we've had.

"I've had years where I couldn't do nothing right (but) we did everything this year that we couldn't do nothing wrong."

Before that, Bliss said he would savor Saturday night's championship fete.

"This is way bigger than anything I've ever won, and of course, it should be," Bliss said. "It hasn't sunk in. I'm sure tomorrow night, when I'm on that stage it's gonna be big.

"I've always dreamed about being up there (on stage) and tomorrow I'll be up there."

Bliss said the first person to congratulate him when his truck stopped on pit road was 2001 champion Jack Sprague, a three-time Truck Series titleist who competed this season in the NASCAR Busch Series.

Crawford and Musgrave also had nothing to be ashamed of.

"We ran up front all day and that's what I came to do," Crawford said. "The guy that won has a teammate and he won the points, and the guy who ran second in the race has a teammate and a Winston Cup program, and the little independent Ford from Ozona, Texas did pretty good."

"Well, we took a full tank of fuel in our truck in that last pit stop and tried to move out and get going," Musgrave said. "I would've needed some more laps to catch Hornaday.

"This Mopar Dodge was really good today, but the championship wasn't there for us -- we just had too much bad luck, but each and every week we were running right up near the front."