Reutimann focused on establishing consistency in Sprint Cup racing
By Jared Turner - SceneDaily Staff Writer
Friday, June 06, 2008
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For David Reutimann, the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season hasn’t been a home run, but it has been a step in the right direction.
Last year, Reutimann’s first in Cup, he failed to qualify for 10 of 36 races and finished 39th in driver points with his new Michael Waltrip Racing team.
This season, Reutimann has qualified for each of the first 13 races and is 26th in driver points.
While such gains are not entirely satisfying to Reutimann, they are encouraging.
“I think we’ve made some great strides at Michael Waltrip Racing,” Reutimann said in a Thursday conference call. “I think the team’s doing a phenomenal job. I think everybody within the organization feels like there’s still a lot of work to be done and that’s what we’re doing right now between moving people around and hiring different people and getting different engineers and also supporting the existing people that we’ve had because we’ve always had great people.
"We needed to support them better. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”
That is evident by the lone top-10 finish Reutimann has registered in 2008 and the reality that, with a couple of bad results, he could wind up outside the top 35 in the Sprint Cup owners points and having to qualify his way into races on speed. Reutimann’s team is currently 28th in owners points while teammates Michael McDowell and Michael Waltrip are 34th and 35th, respectively.
“All of us are still closer to being outside the top 35 than we would like. I don’t feel like I’m in comfortable waters right now,” Reutimann said. “Obviously you want to keep moving forward in the points. It sure would be nice if we were inside the top 20 where you could get away with maybe having an off race or two and not have to worry about taking such a nosedive in the points. I think our team’s doing well. I think they still have work to do and I think they would all agree with that if you were to ask them all the same question.
“At the same time I applaud the efforts they’re making and when you go in the shop and you see the different pieces of equipment and different engineers and different things they’re doing to our cars to make them better, you can't help but be excited about that.”
So while Reutimann was excited about finishing a career-best 10th in last month’s Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, he knows that he and his team still have plenty of room for improvement.
Before Charlotte, Reutimann’s best Cup finish of the campaign was a pair of 18th-place results at Daytona and Martinsville.
“The goal in the Cup car is to get a lot more top-10 finishes and be more consistent at doing that,” he said. “We have one top 10 at Lowe’s this year and obviously that was a 600-mile race and a very tough race.
“We’ve proven that we have the ability to do that and if we can just start doing that on a more consistent basis I think that will get us in the situation where we can start looking more towards finishing in the top five as opposed to just being in the top 10 and being more competitive week in and week out. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”
- Mentioned Drivers:
- David Reutimann
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