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Reutimann diary: Career Break Came At Memphis

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2007

With the season winding down, Zephyrhills' David Reutimann prepares for another weekend of doing Nextel Cup and Busch Series double-duty. He'll be in Atlanta today, Saturday and Sunday for the Nextel Cup Pep Boys Auto 500 and in Memphis on Saturday afternoon for the Sam's Town 250. In this week's edition of his Tampa Tribune rookie diary, Reutimann talks about his fondness for the Memphis Motorsports Park and qualifying for the past eight Cup races.

We're racing at Memphis Motorsports Park on Saturday in the Busch Series. That track has special meaning to me because the turning point of my career came there.

Memphis is where I got to practice and qualify the No. 7 Chevy for Greg Biffle because he was busy with preparations for the Cup race at Martinsville. I was able to put the car on the pole.

While it was disappointing not to be able to drive in the race, winning the pole gave me the opportunity to go on national television and say I was looking for a full-time ride.

Right after that, Darrell Waltrip hired me to drive for him in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Memphis is a tough three-quarter-mile track, but I've been able to get around there pretty well. Even before subbing for Biffle, I had a pretty decent run there in Joe Nemechek's car in 2002. We were running fifth or sixth and got turned around, but still ended up finishing 12th.

Then in the truck series, I had a second in 2005 and a seventh in 2006.

I know Carl Edwards is trying to wrap up the Busch championship this weekend, but I'd like to prolong it as long as I could. We're still second, and while you certainly don't start out the season thinking you hope you can finish second, holding onto the spot would be a nice accomplishment for us.

We'll see; we still have some races to run, and we still have to outrun the guys behind us.

Since I'll be busy with our preparations for the Nextel Cup race at Atlanta, Mark Green will practice and qualify our No. 99 Busch car.

One on the things we're happy with on the Cup side is the fact we've qualified for eight straight races. Obviously, there's more to racing than just making the races.

But that being said, it's really tough to make these things. So I think the fact that everybody at Michael Waltrip Racing is starting to do it more consistently shows we've come a long way. Hopefully, all three teams will make the remaining races and we'll carry momentum into next year.

Tony Fabrizio

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