Mike Bliss: "If I could be racing every weekend, and then a couple of weekends off in the winter, that would be fine." Credit: Autostock

Conversation: Mike Bliss

Mike Bliss has won championships in USAC and in the Craftsman Truck Series, but he's never seen challenges as steep as he's faced this season in the Nextel Cup Series.

Bliss and crew chief Bootie Barker have begun to make some noise in the No. 0 Chevrolet as the series heads to California Speedway for the Sony HD 500 on Sunday.

Bliss took time out to talk about his future with Haas CNC Racing, Bristol mayhem, his spats with Jeff Gordon, the future of USAC's Silver Crown Series and who he feels is the best driver in racing.

Q: You had a pretty good Bristol, so what kind of a job of pumping up your Haas CNC team did Saturday night do?

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Bliss: I think it's always good to finish well, especially in the top-10 in the Nextel Cup Series, but to come out of Bristol that way [is extra special]. Your goal at Bristol is always to get out of there (laughing).

I love running there, but you just don't know what the circumstances will bring. But everybody's pumped up. Our year, I think, is getting better.

We're going back to racetracks for the second time and Bootie and I are getting better together. Everybody was pretty pumped up after that [seventh-place finish].

Q: Looking long-term, have you and team owner Gene Haas begun discussing what your future plans are with Haas CNC Racing?

Bliss: I talked with Joe Custer, our general manager [Tuesday] morning about where we're at now, and how do we get better because we're 26th or 27th in points.

But it looks good for next year, and I was pretty pleased because I want to stay here. I see us becoming a really good team and I didn't want to go anywhere else.

I think Joe feels that way, and the way I walked out of there it was pretty much a handshake and go on with next year.

Q: What is the sponsorship situation for next year? As far as you know, are NetZero and Best Buy back again? And will the Hendrick cooperation continue?

Bliss: Oh yeah -- the Hendrick deal is still there and we'll have all that information, all the cars and everything.

The sponsorship, from what I understand they are still working on and nothing is final. They are still working hard on that.

Of course, Gene Haas has got his own business, Haas CNC, and they've assured me that Gene would just put his name on the car [if he had to], but we don't want that.

Q: It's got to be a positive when a company like CertainTeed comes on the car and has a bang-up time with a top-10 finish at Bristol, of all places, right?

Bliss: I really think that something will come out of it. But we just have to be running better to get a sponsor and to get noticed, I guess.

But CertainTeed, yeah -- that was their first race and what a great deal for them.

Q: You know, Saturday night there was a little mayhem, a few melees with Dale Jarrett and Ryan Newman -- but something I've got to ask you is, you raced for a lot of laps with Tony Stewart and it didn't seem like you guys had any trouble. Was it just that he couldn't catch you?

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Bliss: You know, you're getting down to there being just a couple more races left to get into the Chase.

And in the back of your head, you're thinking, "OK Tony, he's already leading the points, so he's going to race hard -- but he's looking at the big picture."

And Jeff Gordon's trying to get into the big show. And all these guys you're thinking of that are in front of you, you're trying to think of how they're going to race you because they're trying to get into this points race or they're trying to maintain [their spots].

[Because of that] they drive you a little bit different, I think, and at Bristol everybody's a little different. They'll give and take a little more there.

Q: Does that tell you, or give people a little bit more of an idea of how many different scenarios are always playing in your head as a racecar driver?

Bliss: Well, yeah -- and it's not just the driver, it's the crew chief because he's trying to think about, "How do I get my driver up front on a pit stop, or how do we figure, at the end of this race, on our last pit stop we'll be out front?"

Because we say it over and over and over -- it's track position. You can have the best racecar and you're 30th and you can't go anywhere. And as a driver, you just try to think that way, too.

Your car drives a lot different in traffic than it does out in the open air when you're by yourself. You're trying to think what's going to happen, and you're trying to be smart.

You're trying to take an ill-handling racecar and not make it into a ball of junk. And then, you know, there's so much pressure about finishing good and points, because everybody's wrapped up in points.

With the Nextel Challenge, a lot of teams are trying to get into that, so California and Richmond is going to be pretty intense racing, I think.

Q: From a competitor's take, how do you look at the Jarrett - Newman deal and, considering it took out at least one innocent bystander, Kevin Harvick; in addition to almost wiping you out -- what should the penalty be? Were two laps enough or do you excuse it because it's Bristol, and it's emotional?

Bliss: Bristol brings out the emotions in everybody, because you're just so intense. I saw a deal [on TV] on that, and you hate to wreck somebody, because then it's going to involve somebody else, especially at Bristol.

And that was not your intention. Your intention at the moment was you're all mad, and you can't walk away from it and it's there, you have an opportunity [for payback] and you don't think twice about it.

You just do it -- because you're mad and you don't have time to cool off and walk away. But then I know Dale Jarrett probably has a little bit of hard feelings just because he took out somebody else by doing that.

He could have taken out more people, but at the time he didn't care. He wasn't thinking and he didn't have time to cool off. It's tough and it's emotional.

I drove behind a couple guys at Bristol that I thought I should have had payback for, for other instances -- but you think twice about it because you've had a chance to cool off and it would just involve other cars.

Q: A couple times this summer you've got tangled up with guys when it appeared to the viewers on TV to be just hard racing. Is dealing with that just part of taking the program up another level?

Bliss: I think so. I think I have a little more pressure. I'm not saying Jeff Gordon has no pressure right now -- he's trying to get into the Chase.

But I'm a driver that could be thrown by the wayside easily, and nobody really loses sleep over it, I feel. So I'm driving a little harder, and taking it more to heart, I think, every lap than somebody that's got a five-year contract for millions of dollars.

I'm a year-to-year person and I've got to prove myself every race. I don't take it over the limit -- I take the car to [the limit of] what it has, I believe -- but I also try to drive my heart out every lap.

And if it's something that involves somebody else ... I don't do that very often because I try not to overdrive my car, and I've only done it a few times this year trying to get a better finish than what I had, I guess.

Q: Back in February, some of the teams with Hendrick engines had trouble at California -- but all in all would you say that has been one of the better parts of your program?

Bliss: If you take our team, we're a single team, but we have Hendrick chassis and Hendrick engines and the technical help -- so we've got a lot of information from [Hendrick].

So when you're a team like that, you can't point fingers at the motor, because you've got one of the best motor programs out there; the chassis is the same one as Jimmie [Johnson], Jeff [Gordon] and Brian [Vickers] and [Kyle] Busch, so you can't point there.

So you can kind of point toward the driver or the team, the crew. And I think, as a whole, we're all doing well. Bootie's doing an excellent job and I think our team's doing great.

So I think we've got a little more of an advantage on most teams that are running by themselves because we know we've got good motors and chassis.

Q: You've talked about it a little bit, but how would you assess your season to this point, because it really seems like you're getting more out of that car than anyone has a right to expect considering this is the most solid opportunity you've had in Cup?

Bliss: If you look at where we're at in points, it's disappointing. Joe and I were talking about it and it's disappointing where we are in points, but if you look at our performance, we've ran well.

But we haven't been doing that at every race. If we try to go there with a mindset of getting a 15th place finish or better -- and do that every race, the points will come.

That's the disappointing part, but I see a big improvement from the start of the year, just with our bodies, and with Bootie, because he's getting a lot better and with my mental part of it -- I'm getting a lot better.

And we're going back to tracks a second time now, so we know what to expect, Bootie and I together. We know how we ran the first time so we know what to improve on.

Q: You took Dave Malcolmson's 06 truck at Bristol and ran it faster than it's gone lately -- was that just you and how much you like Bristol or a former Craftsman Truck Series champion getting into a good truck and making something happen?

Inside the Numbers Mike Bliss' career statistics Series Races W T5 T10 Cup 59 0 1 5 Busch 76 1 14 29 Truck 145 12 49 82 IROC 4 1 2 4

Bliss: I like both. I like Bristol and I like the Truck Series. Bristol is one of my favorite tracks to drive. Now, maybe to race it's a little different (laughing), because it's hard.

But I like running there. And I like the Craftsman Truck Series because the trucks are a lot of fun to drive. With the bodies and the motor program and everything that they have, they actually have a lot more downforce than the cars.

So I don't want to say that they're easier to drive than a car. ... But they're easier to drive than a car (laughing).

Q: Can you drive them harder?

Bliss: Yeah. They allow you to drive them through the corners harder. It's kind of funny when you look at the lap times between Nextel Cup and the trucks and they're the same speed.

But you're looking at 100 less horsepower in a truck and a lot more drag, so they're getting with it through the corners.

Q: You're going to run Dave's truck at Richmond, so how did that deal come together?

Bliss: Mark Smith, the engine builder, he got me hooked up with them. He does all the engines for the 16 truck [Xpress Motorsports, for whom Bliss won the 2002 championship] and Jack Sprague, so I know Mark real well.

He called me and told me they were looking for somebody to do some races, and I said, "I'd love to, any time I can get a chance."

And it's not that I would do it with any team. I'd noticed that Regan Smith drove for this [MRD Motorsports] team at Homestead, and he finished, I think, 10th or 11th. And I noticed that the trucks were nice, sanitary and they ran good.

And I know that Mark has got good motors -- so if I wouldn't have known all that I probably wouldn't have jumped in their truck. But it's just good equipment.

It's kind of going back to four or five people on a pit crew -- on a team -- and you don't have all this money and all this glamour. It's just straight racing.

Q: What would be the ideal racing schedule for Mike Bliss?

Bliss: I like racing. I actually drive people crazy, my wife and stuff, when I'm home. I hate to be away from home, because I love my family, but on weekends I'm just used to being away at the races.

If I could be racing every weekend, and then a couple of weekends off in the winter, that would be fine.

Q: You've made one Busch start this season. Do you have any other plans in that series?

Bliss: Not that I know of. That was a deal I ran at Daytona [in Chris Lencheski's Chevrolet] and that was probably it.

Q: Have you had any chance to look at the new era Silver Crown cars, and given that yourself, Jeff Gordon, Stewart, Newman, Kahne and so many guys have come out of that realm -- will it be a gold mine for both drivers and owners in the future in terms of grooming talent?

Inside the Numbers Mike Bliss in 2005 Track Start Finish Daytona 35 18 Fontana 10 12 Las Vegas 18 16 Atlanta 16 18 Bristol 41 37 Martinsville 15 36 Fort Worth 42 22 Phoenix 23 20 Talladega 28 36 Darlington 29 19 Richmond 24 37 Charlotte 8 15 Dover 29 18 Pocono 9 35 Michigan 20 27 Sonoma 31 39 Daytona 14 20 Chicago 11 34 Loudon 18 21 Pocono 34 9 Indianapolis 12 11 Watkins Glen 27 26 Michigan 6 37 Bristol 27 7 Averages 22.0 23.8

Bliss: I don't know if I should be politically correct (laughing) or give my honest opinion. I'll give you my honest opinion.

The USAC Silver Crown Series, to me, has been the strongest series in terms of car count, out of any racing series. I remember back in the early '90s, everywhere we'd go there would be 40 cars, 50 cars -- cars going home [after not making the main].

Now, it's steadily dwindled just because of the price of the cars. We had one car for pavement and dirt. Now, you have to have a pavement car and a dirt car.

And now, I see a new [superspeedway] car coming in. So everybody that ran these pavement cars last year -- they're obsolete. They have to buy a different car, different chassis -- everything.

And they're running on mile-and-a-half tracks. I'm not really certain that those drivers need to be on that big a track and that those cars need to be on that big a track.

To me they don't look safe. I would not want to hit a wall with a stuck throttle [in one of them]. I would not want to climb somebody's wheel and go into the catchfence at 180 miles an hour. I don't think they belong on those tracks.

It's my opinion, and to be honest I would not get into one of those cars at Kentucky. I think the series is going to struggle. It's going to be like an open-wheel IRL or CART race -- where you're going to have like, 11 or 12 cars.

Q: I think you raise a good point, because is not the high-horsepower, low-weight, car control thing something you can learn and practice just as well, if not better on dirt and paved half-mile tracks?

Bliss: Yeah. Let me put it this way. Tony Stewart, I think, is the best racecar driver out there. He was awesome on dirt. He won races on pavement. He was good and versatile in anything [he drove].

That helps you, right there. You take Tony Stewart, fresh off Winchester [in a Silver Crown car] never been at Kentucky and put him in a Busch car, and he'll do fine.

I think a guy that can race and win in USAC stuff can adapt to a mile-and-a-half. He doesn't have to have experience in a Silver Crown car at Kentucky. He's got his brains in his head already [and] he knows what to do.

Say a guy, who's never won a race in USAC, or anything, and he goes to Kentucky -- he doesn't belong there. He doesn't know how to win and he probably doesn't have the experience that Tony -- or someone like Tony -- has gained over the years.

I just don't think running a mile-and-a-half in a Silver Crown car justifies you getting into a Cup car or a truck and running on a mile-and-a-half.

Q: You've won championships in the open-wheel stuff and the Craftsman Truck Series, so at this point in your career what are your long-term goals in racing?

Bliss: Well, to race until I can't race -- and I don't know what age that is, of course (laughing). To win a race in the Cup Series, that would be really big.

But just to keep racing is what I really want to do. I don't know what else to do. I've done this for so many years -- I don't have anything to back up on.

You know, I could drive a dump truck, I could do that -- or drive a semi. But I just want to keep racing and trying to win.

I've won races in everything else, but I haven't done it in the Cup Series.