Teetering on the edge, bliss and coulter become champions - Circuit to Circuit

Auto Racing Digest, Feb-March, 2003 by J.J. O'Malley

MIKE BLISS WASN'T THINKING championship at the beginning of the 2002 NASCAR Craftsman Truck season. Instead, the 37-year-old veteran from Milwaukie, Ore., worried about finding a competitive ride for the season. Bliss, the 1993 USAC Silver Crown champion, was a Truck star in the series' early years, winning six races for Jim Smith's Ultra Motorsports team between 1995 and 1998. He raced for Jack Roush in 1999, winning one race, before buying out his contract to try his hand in Winston Cup.

That proved to be the wrong move. Down on his luck after two false starts in Winston Cup--one with A.J. Foyt Racing and one with Eel River Racing--Bliss was back to running occasional Silver Crown races late in 2001, and then he visited NASCAR truck owner Steve Coulter. On the verge of disbanding his Xpress Motorsports team, Coulter put Bliss in his truck at South Boston, and the driver came through with a ninth-place finish. Buoyed by that result, Coulter planned a limited 2002 campaign with Bliss, but opened the year with a blown engine and early exit at Daytona.

Bliss persuaded the team to continue. Running on a race-by-race basis, Bliss ran off three consecutive top-three finishes, followed by a victory at Pikes Peak. After that run, the team successfully sought the championship. Bliss starred in the most competitive season in Craftsman Truck Series history, winning five races and the championship--not bad work for a driver who started the year without a regular ride.

NHRA PowerAde Drag Racing Series

The scene was set for a changing of the guard in the NHRA Funny Car ranks when perennial champ John Force entered the final round at Ponoma Raceway with a slim lead over Tony Pedregon. Paired against one another in the semifinal round, Pedregon got the jump but Force's Castrol Ford Mustang proved quicker over the quarter-mile run. Force went on to win in the finals, his 106th career victory, to earn his 12th career--and 10th consecutive--Funny Car championship.

"Really, it was a win-win situation for me, because I would have won as a driver or as a team owner," says Force. "Tony had a good light and his car was quicker than mine, but it was just our day. Sometimes, I think God actually likes me."

While Force was dramatically writing another chapter in his incredible career, another legend quietly extinguished the torch. Kenny Bernstein's final weekend at the wheel of the Budweiser King abruptly ended in the first round at Ponoma, as the careers of NHRA legends Don Prudhomme and Joe Amato had in previous years. Bernstein lost traction midway down the track and was eliminated by Yuichi Oyama. Although Bernstein did not go out a winner, his "Forever Red" farewell tour ended with a second-place finish in the Top Fuel standings. Over his career, Bernstein accumulated six NHRA championships and became the only driver to win rifles in both Funny Car (198588) and Top Fuel (1996 and 2001). Bernstein will remain active in the sport. Next year, he hands the reins to his 30-year-old son, Brandon, who is set to make the step up to Top Fuel competition.

World of Outlaws

The 2002 campaign opened as the most competitive in the long history of the Pennzoil World of Outlaws, with Steve Kinser and Danny Lasoski locking horns in a duel for the ages. The pair exchanged the points lead 12 times--and were tied once--in the early part of the season before Lasoski suffered a concussion and a broken ankle, among other less severe injuries, in a July crash during hot laps at Williams Grove Speedway. "The Dude" had won the opening-night Preliminary Feature the night before--the first victory of his career at the Pennsylvania short track--giving him an eight-point lead over Kinser.

Lasoski sat on the sideline for four races, falling to fourth in the points. He returned to Tony Stewart's J.D. Byrider Eagle in August at the Mopar Parts Knoxville Nationals as its defending champion. "The Dude" ignored the pain, earned the pole position in sprint car racing's premier race, and finished in fourth place.

Lasoski went on to work his way back to second in the final points tally, scoring 13 victories, but the door was wide open for Kinser to capture his 17th career championship. "The King" won 20 feature races, giving him 471 "A-Main" victories in his career to go with countless heat race and trophy dash triumphs.

Stewart, who had won the WoO owner's championship in his first year as a Sprint car owner in 2001, was denied that title in 2002; he had to "settle" for the coveted Winston Cup.

Infiniti Pro Series

The IRL unveiled the Infiniti Pro Series in 2002 to serve as a steppingstone for drivers striving to reach its parent series, now the pinnacle of open-wheel, oval-track racing in America.

Fittingly, its inaugural champion was A.J. Foyt IV, the grandson of one of the greatest drivers in Indy Racing history. The elder Foyt earned 67 Indy Car victories--including four Indianapolis 500 wins--and claimed a record seven USAC Indy Car rifles. The versatile driver also won seven NASCAR Winston Cup races, including the Daytona 500, plus a pair of victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the 24 Hours of LeMans.