May 27, 2009
By Ron Felix
CIA Stock Photos
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First Time Winner David Reutimann
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Tony Stewart owes David Reutimann an apology. During one of the rain delays during the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600, Stewart was out of his car, talking to various drivers and one of those drivers was David Reutimann. Stewart was jawing at Reutimann for racing him too hard, too early. When the race concluded, it was Reutimann who had the last say, he was the winner and Stewart finished back in 19th place. Reutimann and his crew chief, Rodney Childers, put themselves in position to win when the race was called because of rain -- and that's why you race hard.
Reutimann earned his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) victory -- and gave Michael Waltrip Racing (MWR) its first series win -- in Monday’s rain-postponed Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Reutimann’s crew chief Rodney Childers elected to keep the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Camry out on the track during a caution just past the halfway point (lap 222), where he led five yellow flag laps before the race was red-flagged due to heavy rain and never restarted.
“What are you going to say? It certainly wasn’t the prettiest win, but somebody has to win these things," said Reutimann. "Rodney (Childers, crew chief) made a great call and told me to stay out. We need to come in and work on this thing to make it as good as we need to anyway and we’re probably going to lose some positions on pit road so we just stayed out and took a gamble. It feels really good. When you envision yourself winning your first Sprint Cup race you envision it a little bit different. It’s so hard to win these deals that we’ll just take them any way we can get them.”
Reutimann has made the most starts in a Toyota with 224 total across all three of NASCAR’s premier series.
Stewart did try to temper a backlash from the media by saying ..."A good guy (David Reutimann) won the race and they won it because they made the right call at the end. They put themselves in that position and you can’t take anything away from that. It won’t win you races consistently, but you’re going to get something that way. It’s good for David to get his first win and congratulations to him and his guys."
Ryan Newman was sitting second when the final rain caution came and he finished in that position. It was Newman who made the decision to stay out and overruled Crew Chief.
"There was a decision," said Newman. "We talked about it down the back straightaway. I said, 'Is the rain going to stay?' They said, 'Looks like it. It might. It's gonna rain. Just a matter of how much and what was the situation gonna be with NASCAR calling it.'
"We decided if everybody pitted in front of us, we were going to stay out. Then at the last second, he goes, Come in. My dad is spotting for me. He goes, 'They're all coming.' Gibson says, 'Come in, we'll put four tires on.' Me, I'm like, 'Come on, you can't chicken out on me.' I stayed out. In the end, it's the right thing to do.
Robby Gordon had his best finish (third) since Watkins Glen three years ago when he was second.
“Part of it was watching the computer screen. We were sitting there 20th or 21st and sat there and watched it. We knew if we pitted then we were going to come back out 21st or something like that," said Gordon. "If we stayed out then we had an opportunity to finish in the top-five and we didn’t know how many people were going to stay out. Ryan’s (Newman) crew was on their game and so was (David) Reutimann on theirs. We were probably a 15th place car – ran with Kyle (Busch) for a long time on that one long run. When you start back in the back it’s just hard to pass. We worked our way to 18th at one point and we were running 20th when that caution came out.”
Carl Edwards was fourth and Brian Vickers ended up in the fifth spot.
“I'm disappointed -- would have liked to have finished the race because I know we had a car capable of winning," said Vickers after NASCAR called the race. "It would mean so much to get a win at Lowe's. We get closer and closer to winning each time we come here. We'll just have to wait a few months longer (until October) for another chance. NASCAR did a good job trying to get this thing in for the fans -- the weather just didn't cooperate. Fifth is a decent finish and good points day for us.”
Kyle Busch led 173 of the 227 laps but finished sixth followed by Kasey Kahne, Juan Pablo Montoya, Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth to round out the top ten.
With the ninth place finish, Logano became the Rookie of the Race.
"I think one more green flag run would have been great and would have let me get by the guys that didn’t get tires," Logano said. "The Home Depot Toyota was really good. We lost our brakes after one of the rain delays. I was taking care of my brakes and getting in (the corners) easier and actually was running faster that way. Apparently there’s something there and hopefully it will help us in the future. Usually it rains out when we’re ninth – that’s my best finish and this will be the third time. Hopefully I can get this thing in the top-five one of these days. I learned a lot today and this was probably one of the best runs that we’ve had since Darlington even. I’m happy we’re running good again – that’s cool.”
Jeff Gordon held onto the points lead with a 14th place showing. He now leads Tony Stewart by 44 and Kurt Busch by 115 points.
The win marked the fourth NSCS victory for Toyota in 2009 and 14th since joining the series in 2007.
The next race on the Sprint Cup schedule – the 13th event of 36-races for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. The Autism Speaks 400 will be on Sunday May 24th, at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. The race begins at approximately 2:00 p.m. eastern time with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 1:30 p.m. eastern time.
The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and MRN radio.
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