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THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring…especially if the house contains one of the many drivers, team members or mechanics involved in the Toyota NASCAR program.

Christmas is one of the few times that NASCAR folk get to themselves. There’s no race around the corner, no pressing need to get cars finished or repaired. All of that happens beginning on Jan. 1. For this week, it’s about getting home and getting right.

Rarely, if ever, do the holidays go perfectly for anyone, but for those Toyota NASCAR personnel, the holidays are equal parts celebration and relaxation. That’s what comes from being on the road up to 200 days a year, living the scene. Crew chiefs and drivers, especially, spend their days time-sharing their brains and bodies, balancing needs from any one of a hundred sources.

“The perfect Christmas for me is not doing much of anything at all,” said Rodney Childers, crew chief for David Reutimann’s No. 00 Aaron’s Toyota Camry in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “I just like to spend time with my wife and my two boys, relaxing. We travel so much during the season it’s just nice to not do anything at all. Being gone as much as we are, I like the family time.”

Little more than a week before Christmas, David Reutimann was participating in a photo shoot. Brian Vickers, who drives the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota Camry, had his photo session two days after the season ended in November. Just because there aren’t any Toyota engines revving up and racing around a track somewhere doesn’t mean everybody takes it easy.

Reutimann, hard at work on a dirt car, took a moment to talk about the holidays from his perspective.

“What’s the perfect Christmas for me? It’s just not having to go anywhere,” he said. “All my family is in Florida—my dad, my mom and my cousins—and we generally don’t go down there. If you travel all year long, the last thing you want to do is travel some more. Having quiet time in one place and not having to go anywhere is the perfect Christmas for me.”

The weeks after the season ended at Homestead, Reutimann got to spend some time in Florida at his annual charity golf tournament and his home track.

“I got a chance to go to one dirt race, the weekend after Thanksgiving,” he said. “We had our charity golf tournament and they had a race at my home track, East Bay. I don’t get a chance to do that very often.”

“We’re probably pretty traditional, the buying of gifts and things like that. We don’t do anything outside the norm.”

But as the holiday weekend blends into the final week of 2009, it all starts to get busy again…not that he wasn’t busy before that.

“We’ve been doing a lot of stuff the last few weeks, a lot of travel and some appearances and things like that,” he said. “We had some photo shoots and stuff, just trying to get hero cards printed up and stuff. It really doesn’t feel like it’s slowed down any, to be honest. This week, it’s a little slower. Next week, it’ll be back to wide open again. That just seems to be how it goes.”

For team owner Michael Waltrip, he’s sort of a homebody for the holidays as well. After taking some time in Las Vegas around the NASCAR Sprint Cup Awards Banquet, it was back to being a car owner.

“I played golf with (comedian) Ron White,” Waltrip said. “That was pretty manly, I thought, in Vegas, with Ron White. Since then, I’ve had a lot of meetings, preparing for 2010.”

One important item on the agenda was dinner with his executive team.

“We had our executive team out to my house for dinner, catered by Red Rocks,” he explained. “We had nice spa packages for all the ladies, and for the guys, I got them a big diecast NAPA truck, and we got them something really special…an EZ Grill. And I gave them $50 off their next rental at Aaron’s. That was really special. They loved it.”

As the holidays move ever closer, Waltrip hunkers down and enjoys his time with his daughter.

“Last night, we watched my episode of “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-Grader?” and laughed about that and listened to Christmas music,” he quipped. “For the holidays, we’re going to go down to Florida and see Bob Germain, he owns the GEICO car that races out of our stable. The day after Christmas, we are going to the Bahamas for a couple of days, spend New Year’s Eve down there.”

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