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Reutimann: Richmond Has Special Meaning

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2007

Six years ago, Zephyrhills' David Reutimann made his NASCAR debut in a Busch Series race at Richmond International Raceway. In tonight's Emerson Radio 250 Busch race at the three-quarter-mile short track, he'll make his 152nd start in one of NASCAR's top two divisions. Reutimann talks about this weekend's Busch and Cup races at Richmond and his season to date in this week's edition of his Tampa Tribune diary.

Richmond is where I got my big break, thanks to a childhood friend. Brian Pattie, who worked for Joe Nemechek at the time, had a lot of faith in me and kept pushing Joe to give me a shot. Brian and I worked together growing up. He was my crew chief when I drove dirt Late Models and we won a lot of races together. I was the only one that had a driver's license at the time.

Thanks to Brian's constant pushing, Joe let me test some for his team. He finally allowed me to race a Busch car at Richmond in 2002. We had a respectable finish - 16th - but I had to be careful because we only had one car and one motor. After that, Joe put more deals together for me. That's how it all started at this level.

This was a short week for us - getting back from southern California after Sunday night's race and turning around and getting to Richmond for a Friday night Busch race and Saturday night Nextel Cup race. We lost a day, so there was a lot of scrambling around this week to tie up loose ends.

Saturday night's race will set the order for the Chase for the Championship. Obviously, we're not in the mix. I look forward to being able to go to Richmond one of these years and being locked into the Chase. It would be nice to be thinking about what I have to do to win the championship rather than stressing out about whether I'm going to qualify.

We tested with the Car of Tomorrow last week at Memphis for this week's race. I feel like we learned some things about the shocks and bump stops and some of the other things that are critical to making the COT go fast. You hope the information you gained from the test will help you, but while there are similarities between Memphis and Richmond, there are also major differences.

We really struggled at Richmond in May - we started 14th and finished 29th - so hopefully we're going to have a much better piece.

Richmond isn't my favorite track, but I do like it. It's a pretty racy place, and the fans really get into it. We've had some decent runs there in the Busch Series, even though something usually happened to prevent us from getting a good finish. Our best at Richmond is the ninth I got in the Busch Series race this spring.

There's nothing new yet on my contract situation for next year. The guys at Michael Waltrip Racing are working on some things. Time's running short, and I've got some decisions to make before long.

Tony Fabrizio

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