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It Should Be Good A Week At Kansas

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 28, 2007

Zephyrhills' David Reutimann heads to another track - Kansas Speedway - where he has raced in the Busch Series and Craftsman Truck series but never in a Nextel Cup car. In this week's edition of his Tampa Tribune rookie diary, Reutimann talks about having what he believes will be a good car for the third race in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Kansas is a mile-and-a-half track that's pretty similar to Chicagoland Speedway. The good news there is we had a strong car at the Chicagoland race. We never got to show how good we were, because we had an engine failure early in that race.

So we'll have the same car at Kansas, and hopefully we'll have the same package and be competitive like we were at Chicagoland. You hope that you can take a package that worked at one track and at least have a starting point when you go to another one that's similar. Of course, our first priority, as always, is to qualify for the race.

I've raced at Kansas in the truck and Busch series and had some decent runs. In my one Busch race there last year, I started eighth and finished 13th. Two of my truck races there resulted in top-10 finishes, a 10th in '06 and a third in '05.

After racing the Car of Tomorrow the last three weeks at Richmond, New Hampshire and Dover, we go back to the current car. Obviously, since we're not in the Chase, we're concentrating on developing our COT program. But at the same time, we aren't neglecting the current cars because we still have to race them a few more times.

I think everybody will be glad when the season is over and you can put the old car to bed. I'm going to miss the car a lot, but at least we'll be able to concentrate on one type of car and cut down on the amount of cars we have floating around and the amount of work the guys have to do.

The contract offer I received from Michael Waltrip Racing for next year and beyond is in the hands of my lawyer and adviser, and we're working through the details.

There are still some options out there for me, but this is a very good one. Michael Waltrip has always been a guy who's done what he's told me he was going to do. He has never told me one thing and done another. We just have some formalities to deal with.

I just want to have a clear vision on where we're headed with everything so I can feel comfortable about being there.

Tony Fabrizio

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