David Reutimann scores emotional win at Chicago for his second Sprint Cup victory
David Reutimann's crew congratulates him on his second career Sprint Cup victory. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
JOLIET, Ill. – David Reutimann silenced the doubters, running away from Jeff Gordon and then holding off Carl Edwards to win Saturday night’s LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway.
It was the Michael Waltrip Racing driver’s second career win in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, and erased any lingering questions from taking his first win in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway last season.
“I heard so much stuff for winning a rain-shortened event … everybody said we didn’t earn it,” an emotional Reutimann said in victory lane. “Tonight, I don’t know what they can say about this one.
“I don’t even know what to say. … I was tearing up pretty bad [in the closing laps]. There was no rain tonight. We earned this one; nobody gave it to us and that feels really good.”
Reutimann, 40, led three times for 52 laps in the 267-lap event, including the final 32.
Gordon (Hendrick Motorsports), Clint Bowyer (Richard Childress Racing) and Jamie McMurray (Earnhardt Ganassi Racing) completed the top five.
“He’s a class act, a really great guy,” Edwards said of Reutimann. “He’s very humble, just a nice person. He’s the first guy to congratulate you for something and the first guy to apologize to you if he thinks he’s done something wrong.”
Gordon, one of seven lap leaders on the night, led laps 165-200 before Reutimann closed on his bumper and then made the pass for the lead on the backstretch. A lap later, Gordon returned the favor and held the point for 11 laps before Reutimann sped past a final time.
A final round of green-flag stops briefly shuffled the running order, but when the cycle had been completed, Reutimann was back out front with a sizeable lead. Edwards quickly dispatched of Gordon to lay claim to second.
“Ever since then, I wanted to win one for him and do it right,” crew chief Rodney Childers said of the team’s Charlotte win. “Really, we just tried not to do anything during practice that would get us off base. We tried a few things and knew the track would come to us at night.
“We kept talking about that. … We stuck with what our gut thought there. We never touched the track bar or the jack bolts. That tells us how good it was from the get-go. You just have to have track position. [We] kept fighting our way up there.”
For Edwards, it was his best finish of the 2010 season.
“Second is bittersweet,” he said. “You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result. If we run that well every week we will win plenty of races.”
Edwards was closing at the finish, trimming a 2-second lead to 0.727 second at the finish line, but said he felt he could have caught the leader with enough time.
“Three more laps and we would have been right there, but you never really know, I guess, because it depends on how hard he is running, too,” Edwards said. “But I feel like with three more laps things would have gotten really interesting.”
It was Gordon’s fifth consecutive top-five finish, and the fourth time he’s finished third this season.
“I was happy; we were able to get up there and take the lead at times,” Gordon said. “I knew David was really, really strong.
“We made some adjustments on the last pit stop. Unfortunately, they didn’t go the right way for us. To come out of here with third, and solid car all night, is something.”
While it was a good points night for most – Edwards moved off the Chase bubble to 10th in points while Gordon solidified his hold on second place in the standings – it was an extremely forgettable outing for points leader Kevin Harvick, defending series champion Jimmie Johnson and a host of others.
Harvick struggled early, eventually going a lap down before heading to the garage with fuel pump issues. The RCR driver was able to return to the track, but he finished 34th.
He heads into the series’ off week nursing a 103-point advantage over Gordon.
Johnson, on the other hand, was dominant early, leading the first 92 laps before a minor miscue shuffled him back to third during a round of green-flag stops. That proved to be the least of his problems. Besides missing the entrance to pit road, Johnson later spun, rallied, cut a tire and scraped the wall, lost two laps for repairs, and eventually limped home in 25th.
There were 10 lead changes and four cautions for 21 laps.
