12/09/02……… Mike Bliss may be the new Craftsman Truck Series champion, but he has had a rocky road in NASCAR racing. Even though he won seven races between 1995 and 1999 in the truck series, his attempt at Winston Cup racing was disastrous.

You can’t blame a guy for wanting to better himself. Bliss left the prosperous Roush Racing truck team to join a start up team in Cup as a rookie driver. To top that off, he went to work for one of the most particular and hard core racers in the business, A. J. Foyt. That particular foray only lasted four races. By the time April of 2000 rolled around, Bliss knew he had made a serious mistake. He was lucky enough to end up at Eel River Racing, but was dumped at the end of the season after posting only one top ten in 24 starts.

To make matters worse, Roush Racing was really agitated with Bliss when he left, and made him go in debt to buy his way out of his contract to join up with Foyt in Winston Cup. Bliss is still paying off that debt today, and will be paying on it for several years. He laments that Roush racing hasn’t been very good to him.

After sitting out the 2001 season, Bliss came back to the truck series with a purposeful vengeance. Feeling somewhat humbled by his past failures, his attitude softened to the point where he felt at ease racing for a championship with Xpress Motorsports. That paid off handsomely, with five wins and the 2002 Craftsman Truck Series Championship. This was a point that had been so close for so many years, but was now front and center.

Brendan Gaughan easily won the Raybestos Rookie of the Year title in the Craftsman Truck Series. Gaughan drove the No. 62 NAPA Dodge for Orleans Racing to two wins, five top five, and nine top ten finishes. He took the top rookie honors in 16 of the 22 races in the 2002 season.

Gaughan finished the 2002 season 11th in driver’s points and hopes to be a serious contender for the championship in this sophomore year. Now that he is somewhat familiar with the tracks, except for Bristol, he feels that he will do better in 2003.

Robert Pressley is biding his off-season time in limbo. He very much wants to return to the No. 18 Dickies Dodge next season for Bobby Hamilton racing, but his plans are up in the air. The problem being that Bobby Hamilton’s plans are also up in the air. Hamilton is one of the Winston Cup drivers who are presently out of a job. It may very well come to pass that Hamilton ends up driving his own truck in the series for 2003, which will leave Pressley to fend for himself.