David Reutimann looking to bounce back from Atlanta mishap
Mechanical misfortune relegated David Reutimann to a 40th-place finish at Atlanta. After dropping nine spots to 18th in points, Reutimann will attempt to bounce back next week at Bristol.
// Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
It's an unfortunate circumstance of NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing – it can often take several good finishes for a driver to improve his points position by even the slightest margin, but it only takes one bad race to send him plummeting down through the standings.
David Reutimann can attest to that.
After the season’s first three races, the Michael Waltrip Racing driver was comfortably – or so it seemed – in the top 10 in points with finishes of fifth, 15th and 13th. But during the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, disaster struck.
“We just had an issue where a lower radiator hose or lower water line ended up leaking,” Reutimann said. “The motor pushed the water out of it and it broke.”
It wasn’t the fault of Toyota Racing Development, which provides power for the MWR organization, he said. “It was an internal issue within our shop. It was just something that happened.”
The end result was a 40th-place finish and a drop of nine spots, from ninth to 18th in the point standings. It may not be exactly the way the early portion of the 2009 season played out for the 40-year-old, but it’s similar nonetheless. A 32nd-place finish at Atlanta last year sent him from fifth to 12th in the standings. While there were better efforts down the road – including his first career Cup win a few months later – it was the start of what would become an up-and-down season for the Zephyrhills, Fla., native.
One bad race doesn’t ruin a season – how many times have drivers said it was a number of setbacks that kept them out of NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup and not a single race? Reutimann and his No. 00 team, headed up by crew chief Rodney Childers, have plenty of time to bounce back.
“Obviously the points are so tight right now, you can have one bad race and… we were in the top 12 when we went to Atlanta, now we’re sitting 18th,” he said. “We’ve got to go and get back after it, get back in the top 12 and try to stay there for the rest of the year.”
He’s made steady progress since making the move to Cup in 2007, finishing six or more positions higher in points each season. If he can keep that streak alive, it would put him just inside the cutoff for making this year’s Chase. It would be a first not only for Reutimann, who had a career-best 10 top-10 finishes and two poles in 2009, but a first for MWR as well. The organization has improved vastly since its debut in 2007, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.
Reutimann isn’t the only driver at MWR, but his team clearly got out of the gate quickest. Maintaining that pace, and avoiding problems such as the one that surfaced at Atlanta, is a priority.
Teammate Martin Truex Jr., who made the move from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing to MWR during the offseason, has gotten off to a slow start, and is 24th in points. Marcos Ambrose, whose JTG Daugherty Racing team has a technical alliance with MWR and is housed within its shop, has climbed from 40th to 28th in points thanks to top-15 finishes in his last two outings. Co-owner Michael Waltrip has scaled back his racing schedule for 2010, and will be making only infrequent appearances on the track.
“I think we definitely have the pieces in place at Michael Waltrip Racing to continue, to be in the Chase and do the things we need to do,” Reutimann said. “Win races, run in the top five, get poles and do those things, lead laps, all the things that you go there to do every week.”
