March 16, 1999 -- Mike Bliss moves to the Roush Racing stable in 1999 and will pilot the #99 Exide Batteries Ford F-150. Following four successful years in the NCTS, the 1998 Busch Pole Award winner is excited about the upcoming season which begins Saturday, March 20 at Homestead, Florida.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE DURING THE OFF-SEASON TO PREPARE FOR 1999? "Mostly I've drove my wife (Sue) crazy around the house. Seriously though, I did compete in the USAC Silver Crown series as I've done in the past. This off-season has really seemed to drag on though. I'm anxious to get going."

YOU'VE MOVED OVER TO A NEW TEAM FOR 1999, HOW IS THE ROUSH RACING TEAM DIFFERENT? "Roush obviously takes racing very seriously. They handle their truck team like they handle their Winston Cup teams, with a ton of effort and focus. Roush builds all the race chassis and do everything in-house and that's important when you might wreck something and then be able to get it fixed right away. The whole Roush shop is set up very well. A lot of the team guys have worked on the Roush Trans-Am teams in the past, so they know what they're doing."

TALK ABOUT YOUR NEW TEAMMATE GREG BIFFLE. "Working with Greg is going to be a real plus for the team. I think there are some things that I can share with Greg that will help him and vice versa. His Roush team ran very well last year at some places. I want to see what he has learned from the past few years in the series. I've got a lot of mental notes from my past truck experiences that can help us both. It's been interesting to see how similar we are as far as set-ups go. Our driving styles are pretty much the same, so we look for the same set-up and feel."

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE HOMESTEAD TRACK? "Last year was the first year of the new configuration at Homestead. I liked the old configuration better. I do like the flat and fast tracks like Homestead. I started second there last year but didn't finish as well as I would have liked. It's kind of a unique track because it is so long and it takes a lot of different approaches to be fast there. I noticed during our test that the weather plays more of a key because it seems to change the surface conditions. The corners are so big and so important. If you don't get off the corners well, you won't be fast in the straights. You can have all the horsepower in the world, but you have to get through those tough corners or you won't go down the straightaways very fast." ....

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