David Reutimann used to feel a bit like that cartoon character with the cloud hanging over him.
That feeling changed on a clear night at the Chicagoland Speedway with a clear victory over Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon. It was his second NASCAR Sprint Cup career win.
“I felt like there was a cloud over it, no pun intended, but a dark cloud hanging over our head with that win at the 600. Everybody just says, Yeah, you guys won, but… Rodney Childers won me that race. He made the right calls. He won me the race tonight.”
His first win came over a year ago at Charlotte. He won it on a gamble on fuel staying out on the track until it started to rain, then was declared the victor after an eternity of waiting until NASCAR officials called the race with 20-laps remaining.
Childers is Reutimann’s crew chief, the person who made the decision which gave the Michael Waltrip Racing team its’ first (and now second) win.
Even the quiet Childers had to deal with issue that they had an “official win” that didn’t feel like a real one. “It was a little emotional for me at Charlotte,” he said. “Ever since then, I wanted to win one for him and do it right. It was a good night a lot of fun.”
David Reutimann took the lead with after a 15 lap skirmish with Gordon then led the final 51-laps of the 267-lap race around the 1.5 mile oval.
Driving a Toyota he held off Edwards’ Ford by a solid .727 seconds. Carl Edwards was on the verge of his first win since 2008. It was tough on a driver who had nine wins that year and nothing since then.
“Second is bittersweet. You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result,” he said adding “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, but I feel like with three more laps things would have gotten really interesting.”
It was bittersweet for Gordon also, who hadn’t won in 48-races. “When the sun went down, we were really good. Had good grip but we fought loose off all night. Then we started fighting loose-in, loose-off condition. But all-in-all, it was a great effort by the whole team. We have to give David Reutimann a lot of credit. Hats off to him. Great job and I'm happy for those guys. We just came up a little bit short.”
While one of NASCAR’s underdogs was having the best race of his career, Jimmie Johnson, currently the most successful, was have one of his worst.
After leading the first 92-laps the clouds came down on the four-time champion who became a father for the first time earlier this week when his wife Chandra gave birth to a girl.
He never led again. He had problem pitting “I just didn’t expect the car to try to rotate around on the brakes coming to pit road like it did and I almost spun out, so I missed pit road that time.” Then he spun for real on lap 137 scraping the wall and finished 25th on a weekend that should have very special in his personal life.
The Sprint Cup Series takes a weekend off with the next race coming up on July 25th at Indianapolis. Kevin Harvick leads the points over Gordon and Johnson.
That feeling changed on a clear night at the Chicagoland Speedway with a clear victory over Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon. It was his second NASCAR Sprint Cup career win.
“I felt like there was a cloud over it, no pun intended, but a dark cloud hanging over our head with that win at the 600. Everybody just says, Yeah, you guys won, but… Rodney Childers won me that race. He made the right calls. He won me the race tonight.”
His first win came over a year ago at Charlotte. He won it on a gamble on fuel staying out on the track until it started to rain, then was declared the victor after an eternity of waiting until NASCAR officials called the race with 20-laps remaining.
Childers is Reutimann’s crew chief, the person who made the decision which gave the Michael Waltrip Racing team its’ first (and now second) win.
Even the quiet Childers had to deal with issue that they had an “official win” that didn’t feel like a real one. “It was a little emotional for me at Charlotte,” he said. “Ever since then, I wanted to win one for him and do it right. It was a good night a lot of fun.”
David Reutimann took the lead with after a 15 lap skirmish with Gordon then led the final 51-laps of the 267-lap race around the 1.5 mile oval.
Driving a Toyota he held off Edwards’ Ford by a solid .727 seconds. Carl Edwards was on the verge of his first win since 2008. It was tough on a driver who had nine wins that year and nothing since then.
“Second is bittersweet. You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result,” he said adding “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, but I feel like with three more laps things would have gotten really interesting.”
It was bittersweet for Gordon also, who hadn’t won in 48-races. “When the sun went down, we were really good. Had good grip but we fought loose off all night. Then we started fighting loose-in, loose-off condition. But all-in-all, it was a great effort by the whole team. We have to give David Reutimann a lot of credit. Hats off to him. Great job and I'm happy for those guys. We just came up a little bit short.”
While one of NASCAR’s underdogs was having the best race of his career, Jimmie Johnson, currently the most successful, was have one of his worst.
After leading the first 92-laps the clouds came down on the four-time champion who became a father for the first time earlier this week when his wife Chandra gave birth to a girl.
He never led again. He had problem pitting “I just didn’t expect the car to try to rotate around on the brakes coming to pit road like it did and I almost spun out, so I missed pit road that time.” Then he spun for real on lap 137 scraping the wall and finished 25th on a weekend that should have very special in his personal life.
The Sprint Cup Series takes a weekend off with the next race coming up on July 25th at Indianapolis. Kevin Harvick leads the points over Gordon and Johnson.
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| David Reutimann - photo nascar.com |