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REUTIMANN TOUGHS IT OUT

There’s a reason the folks at Michael Waltrip Racing nicknamed David Reutimann “The Franchise.”

He’s the team’s go-to guy, the one who’s come up big this season, winning at Chicagoland Speedway in July and scoring five top-five finishes in 24 races, as many as he scored in his first three seasons combined in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

With two races to go in NASCAR’s 26-race regular season, Reutimann knows he and the No. 00 Aaron’s Toyota Camry are long shots to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

But understand this, wherever Reutimann ends the season in points, there is absolutely no quit in the driver, crew chief Rodney Childers or anyone else on the Michael Waltrip Racing crew.

That much was evident at Bristol Motor Speedway last weekend, where in less than 36 hours, Reutimann went from literally being too sick to practice the Aaron’s Dream Machine to finishing as runner-up to Kyle Busch in the Irwin Tools Night Race. It was the third time this season Toyotas have finished 1-2 in a Sprint Cup race.

At Bristol, Reutimann suffered a severe case of food poisoning on Thursday night, so bad that when practice began Friday morning, Aric Almirola was in the car while Reutimann was resting and getting fluids.

The Zephyrhills, Fla. driver rebounded enough to practice the car for the last half of the opening session Friday, as well as all of the final “Happy Hour” round of practice. Then, he qualified the Aaron’s Dream Machine in fifth.

When Saturday came around, Reutimann was still not 100 percent up to snuff. And given how physically demanding the high-banked 0.533-mile Bristol oval is, with its 16-second laps, deafening noise and stagnant air, it was no sure thing that Reutimann would be able to stay in the seat for the entire 500-lap race.

As it turned out, Reutimann didn’t just stay in the seat, he drove a fantastic race, leading 25 laps late in the race before Busch was able to get around him and take a lead he never surrendered to win his third Cup race of the year.

After the race, Reutimann was still not feeling well – Bristol will do that to you – but he wasn’t ready to count the team out of the Chase yet.

“We're back a pretty good bit in the points, and I don't know if it's realistic shot or not, but we're just going to keep trying to run as good as we can,” says Reutimann, who is 17th in points, some 155 points out of 12th place, with just two races left to try and grab that spot, starting with Atlanta on Sept. 5.

“We don't have anything to lose, just go out there and try to win races and gamble on pit strategy and things like that to try to make things happen, because you're either in or you're not,” he says.

That never-say-die attitude is how things are run at MWR, which began three years ago with team owner Michael Waltrip’s dream and vision.

“He put every dime he ever won in 25 years and then everything that the bankers would possibly let him borrow into this race team,” says MWR Executive Vice President of Business Development and General Manager Ty Norris, who has been with Waltrip from the beginning.

The commitment of Waltrip got it started.

“He turned a movie theater into a winning racing shop,” says Norris of Waltrip. “In 2007 at the end of the year we were on the brink. (MWR co-owner) Rob Kauffman came in and secured us. Toyota said, ‘It's going to be OK, because your success story long term will be Toyota's success story.’”

And that success story continues to play out and improve.

“I'm proud of my guys, and as far as what we do the rest of the year as far as pit strategy and things, those will be Rodney Childers' call, but we'll just go out there and race as hard as we can and get all we can while we can,” says Reutimann.

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