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REUTIMANN GAINS MOMENTUM

David Reutimann had two weeks to bask in the glory of winning at Chicagoland Speedway, finally removing the stigma of winning his first race via the weatherman.

Now he’s working on getting to the Chase.

The victory at Chicagoland for the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry was worth 190 points, and that left him 15th in the standings, just 96 points out of the top 12 with six races left until the Chase field is filled.

After being 30th in points after Texas, the eighth race of the season, Reutimann has improved 15 spots in 11 races, notching 11 straight top-20 finishes, and capping it off with the victory at Chicagoland.

“We had some stuff at the beginning of the year that kind of got us behind the eight-ball a little bit,” Reutimann said, moments after announcing he had signed an extension with Michael Waltrip Racing and that sponsor Aaron’s was good through 2012. “We just had a couple of failures and it got us behind.

“Performance-wise, if you look at last year versus this year, we’ve actually been better on the track than what we had last year.”

Last year, Reutimann and crew chief Rodney Childers had no DNFs. This year, they’ve had three. One was an overheating issue at Atlanta, and the other two were engine failures at Bristol and Texas.

“I feel like we’ve been doing the right things all year long,” he said. “We’ve just had some things that have bitten us.”

As for making the Chase, Reutimann said that’s obviously the goal, but it isn’t going to take the team out of its routine at the shop or the track.

“We’re not going to go in there re-think it and try to reinvent the wheel. We’re just going to go out there and keep our heads down and keep focused on what we’ve been doing.”

Improvements may need to be made, but one thing that doesn’t need tweaking is the Toyota engine, Reutimann said.

“Toyota has been bringing us more horsepower every week,” he said. “The motors have been great. That’s going to help us as well in our fight.”

It bears mention that the No. 00 team has really only been on the track together a short time.

“You can forget 2007,” said MWR Vice-President Ty Norris. “In 2008, we were just trying to make the race, so in a sense we were a qualifying team, not a racing team. Last year was the first year where we were an actual racing team. We had both cars in the top 35 and we didn’t have to worry about making the races anymore.”

“That itself was a huge relief. For it being just about 18 months, we’re in a pretty good spot.”

As for what he needs to make the Chase, Reutimann shrugged.

“It’s always going to be a mix and match of different things that you need to do to be better, but I feel like we’re on track to do the things we need to do,” he said.

Reutimann’s team, the one that Waltrip set up to take the company to the next level, is led by Childers, one of the more studious crew chiefs out there and not real big on emotion, though he had quite a bit of it following the race at Chicago.

Reutimann, whose nickname at the shop is “The Franchise,” says his team “approaches things differently.”

“We don’t pay attention to what’s going on,” Reutimann said. “Don’t pay attention to points, the Chase, any of it. Go out there and try to win the race, and if you can’t win the race, run as good as you possibly can for that given day and then just don’t pay attention to anything else.”

That’s not to say that he’s not aware of how close he and his team are to making it into the Chase.

“Whenever we get in the Chase, somebody will let us know where we’re supposed to be and we’ll be in good shape.”

Of course, Sunday’s performance at Indianapolis was nearly over before it began, as Reutimann was caught up in an opening-lap crash and eventually finished 28th. That cost him 81 points and three spots, leaving him 18th in the points, 177 out with six races left to the Chase.

But Reutimann has already proven his ability to rebound from adversity and we certainly haven’t heard the last from him yet.