Bliss will keep on truckin’ — for time being

Thursday, Nov. 6, 1997 | 9:53 a.m.

There aren't too many people who can say no to a king and even fewer race-car drivers who can say no to The King.

But when Richard Petty, a k a The King, courted Mike Bliss earlier this year to replace departing driver Bobby Hamilton in his NASCAR Winston Cup STP Pontiac, Bliss said no.

Bliss, who will drive the No. 2 Team ASE Racing Ford F-150 in Sunday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Carquest Auto Parts 420K at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, didn't want to join the long list of former short-track stars who flopped after advancing to Winston Cup racing.

"I'm not quite ready to make the move," Bliss said of Petty's offer.

"Results are what get you to Winston Cup and I'm willing to do another year (in the truck series). I'm flattered I was considered by Richard Petty ... but it wasn't the right move yet."

That's not to say that Bliss wouldn't have given the offer more serious thought had the timing been different.

"The whole thing was, there was one person in front of me and (Petty is) still trying to get him," Bliss said. "I stayed in touch but I just couldn't afford to lose this deal and wait for that and if it didn't come up, I'd be out of everything.

"They really want this other driver ... there's nothing wrong with what we're doing here and I want to try to win the championship and then go out of here as the champion."

Bliss said that other successful short-track drivers had made the leap to Winston Cup racing prematurely and failed, and that weighed in his decision to turn down Petty.

"If I move up, I want to make sure that I'm ready and that I move up, hopefully, with a team that has won in the past and knows how to win and can teach me about things that I don't know," Bliss said.

"I'm learning more each race in this truck division that I can take up into Winston Cup -- the knowledge, the handling, the characteristics of the race cars and stuff like that."

Judging by his performance the past few months, Bliss doesn't have all that much more to learn in the truck series. In addition to winning his third consecutive pole at last weekend's Delco Battery 300 in Phoenix, Bliss has finished in the top 10 in seven of his last eight races -- including a win from the pole at California Speedway in Fontana.

The fact that two of Bliss' six poles this year have come at the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway and the 2-mile California Speedway gives the Milwaukie, Ore., resident reason to be optimistic coming into Sunday's race at the 1.5-mile LVMS.

"We came off the Fontana win, which is a two-mile track, and I feel real good on those big tracks," Bliss said. "We're bringing a truck to Las Vegas that has had two poles, at Texas and Fontana, and won Fontana and finished fifth at Texas.

"It's a real good truck and I feel real good about this race."

Last year, in the inaugural Carquest 420K at LVMS, Bliss qualified seventh but battled an ill-handling truck and finished 12th. He said he is looking forward to returning to Las Vegas armed with the experience of having run here before.

"Going into this race, I feel a lot better than last year because I know what to expect," he said. "We ran it last year and I was really impressed with how the trucks handled. It was really the first time any of us had driven on a big track at that kind of speed but it was a fun race."

* TRUCK NOTES: Several NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series drivers will appear at Friendly Ford, 660 N. Decatur Blvd., from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday to sign autographs. Among the drivers scheduled to attend are Brett Bodine, Bryan Reffner, Stacy Compton, Wayne Anderson and Tony Roper. ... Tammy Jo Kirk, who made history when she became the first female to gain an Expert rating as an American Motorcyclist Association dirt-track racer, has replaced Kenny Hendrick as the driver for the Auto Value Parts Stores Ford that is entered in Sunday's race.