David Reutimann had gone winless in 42 consecutive Sprint Cup races entering Saturday night’s LifeLock.com 400 and was well off the pace among leading NASCAR drivers.
Not anymore.
The 40-year-old Floridian claimed his first victory since May 2009 as he held off Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon at Chicagoland Speedway.
Reutimann, who pulled into the lead with about 50 laps to go, edged a late-charging Edwards by 0.728 seconds. Chicago Tribune
“No rain tonight boys,” Reutimann said after taking the checkered flag at Chicagoland Speedway.
He was referring to his first Cup win in the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 last year.
As third-place finisher Jeff Gordon remarked over the radio about Reutimann after the No. 00 Toyota blew by him on lap 213, “I’ll tell you, he’s pretty damn good. He’s a (freaking) rocket.”
Carl Edwards, Gordon, Clint Bowyer and polesitter Jamie McMurray rounded out the top five.
“We earned this one,” Reutimann said. “Nobody gave it to us and that feels really good. It was a total team effort. FOXNews
Reutimann, who is in a contract year at Michael Waltrip Racing, recently reached a handshake agreement on a three-year extension with the team.
Norris said the team would announce specifics about the futures of Reutimann and crew chief Rodney Childers at Indianapolis on July 23.
“These guys proved [Saturday night] that they deserve a contract,” Norris said. “They deserve to be around.”
“I do when I get out of that race car and everything aches,” Gordon said. “It didn’t used to be like that.”
As Reutimann hunted Gordon down for the lead, his team came on the radio and encouraged him to wait for Gordon to make a mistake.
“Are you kidding?” Reutimann joked. “He’s Jeff Gordon. When’s he going to make a mistake?”
But Gordon did develop handling problems, allowing Reutimann to take the lead on Lap 213. He moved in front again after a cycle of pit stops.
After the final round of green-flag stops, Edwards was gaining on Reutimann at the end of the race but ran out of time.
“Second is bittersweet,” Edwards said. “You want to win, but we’re obviously very happy with the result. If we run that well every week, we’ll win plenty of races. The key is that we ran so well. If we can continue that every week we will be in good shape.
“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.” NASCAR.com
Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Paul Menard completed the top-10.
Jimmie Johnson, who became a father for the first earlier this week, led the first 92 laps before he experienced several issues that eventually put him two laps behind. When Johnson attempted to pit for the first time in the 400-mile race, he got loose and missed the entrance to pit road. That allowed McMurray to take the lead from him.
Shortly after, Johnson’s rear bumper made contact with Martin Truex’s front end, putting Johnson into a spin on the infield grass.
“I followed Jeff [Gordon] into the corner and got tight being behind him,” Johnson said. “I could hear that [Truex] was trying to squeeze in there on the white line. I just think the air being that close to me disrupted my car, and I felt it earlier in a slide. I just couldn’t catch it, and got turned around there.”
Johnson had to pit unexpectedly again when he made contact with the wall in the late-stages of the race. The four-time defending series champion finished 25th. MiamiHerald.com
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland - Race Results
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