David Reutimann is rarely without a smile. One of the most approachable drivers in the NASCAR garage there has never been too much that seemed to get him down.
That changed last week and this past weekend at Texas Motor Speedway Reutimann had very little to smile about.
The Zephyrhills Florida native, son of legendary short track racer Buzzie Reutimann was given the axe from the only team he’s raced for since entering the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2007, Michael Waltrip Racing. From all indications, Reutimann had very little warning of his impending firing.
"it's a bad time to be out of a job. I'm just struggling a little bit with it," said Reutimann, who had signed a multiyear extension last July after winning at Chicagoland Speedway. "You've just got to wonder if it's worth it in the long run. I don't know.”
”The alternative is not doing it at all and that's not a great alternative to have,” he added. “I want it worse than anybody that's ever set foot in this garage and I still do. I can still win races, I can still get the job done. Let's not forget last year that we were able to win and actually had a shot at making it in the Chase. That's only been a year ago. I can still do that if I can get into the right situation. It's unfortunate that things worked out like they did."
The question becomes why? Why did Waltrip decide to give Reutimann the boot? While his performance hasn’t been stellar he remains the only driver to score wins for MWR, two in fact.
It seems the biggest and maybe only reason was revealed Friday when Waltrip announced the addition of Mark Martin who will compete in Reutimann’s former ride on a part time basis next season. As part of Friday’s announcement, Waltrip didn’t mention the reasons or even Reutimann by name, although he did skillfully reveal what may have happened behind the scenes.
“Had an interesting season this year,” Waltrip said as he announced Martins signing. “We’ve performed well, but we haven’t finished all that well and we elected that it was not going the way we hoped it would and talking to Mr. (Ken) Butler (chief operating officer at Aaron’s) he wanted to know what we were going to do. He said, ‘With where we are in the points, give me some options. Tell me what we are going to do,’ and he picked a future Hall of Famer here to drive the Aaron’s Dream Machine and I couldn’t be prouder or happier.”
That future Hall of Famer is of course Martin who, while one of the most likeable personalities in the garage, is in the twilight of his career.
Butler also seemed to avoid mentioning too much about Reutimann.
“We knew him and we’ve been with David for four of five years through Nationwide and all the way up to Cup, so I’m very appreciative of everything David has done -- created the old Lucky Dog to go with it,” Butler said. “But our contract is up next year, so our thinking in our camp is, ‘What’s next? What’s the next big deal?’ And, you don’t want to ever run out of time that you’re not sponsor. They could get somebody else and we’re out. I kind of like staying in front of it and I went to Michael and said, ‘What can we do next? What’s the next big deal,’ and we started thinking outside the box and I said, ‘Well, what about that Mark Martin guy?’ I’m thinking driver development program right here, you know. So we went out and got him and he’s on the team and I can’t be more than happy.”
When all the dust has settled it seems that the real reason Reutimann was replaced was due to a marketing idea; an idea Butler touched on briefly.
“I’ve got some ideas,” Butler said. “I’m not sure how they’re going to work out yet, but if you can just kind of look at these two cats driving the Aaron’s Dream Machine, I think you probably can see two opposites and I’m thinking we can have a lot of fun with that.”
So while a sponsor will be having ‘fun with that’, Reutimann, who finished 22nd Sunday, will be looking for a quality ride. Let’s hope he finds one because without David Reutimann smiling the NASCAR garage just isn’t the same.
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