The Zephyrhills native is rookie of the year in the NASCAR truck series.
By BRANT JAMES
Published November 19, 2004
Cruising south on Interstate 75 in his bronze-brown motor coach, David Reutimann peered at the outskirts of Punta Gorda, awestruck by what he saw.
"Man, it's hard to believe it when you get down here and all these trees are still down and all these houses are still messed up," the Zephyrhills native said of the lingering destruction left by Hurricane Charley. "It shows you we got kind of lucky."
Reutimann, 34, traveling with his wife, Lisa, and 2-year-old daughter, Emilia, is riding a streak of good fortune as he prepares for the final race of his rookie season in the NASCAR truck series today at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It's a mere formality that he will be named rookie of the year. He is 15th in the point standings with two poles and nine top-10 finishes in his first full season on the circuit.
Moreover, he's getting to enjoy all of it with his family, thanks to this diesel-chugging slice of heaven he purchased for the final six weeks of the season. He's just "Dad" behind the wheel of the coach. It just so happens he parks it inside speedways on weekends and walks to his job as driver of the Darrell Waltrip Racing No.17 Toyota. In the offseason, he'll park it at a campground at Disney World when he takes Emilia there for the first time. It's hard to tell which trip excites him more.
"The only reason I got the coach was so Emilia and Lisa could come with me," Reutimann said. "Every time I go away, it seems like Emilia is an inch taller and doing more things. I don't want to miss out on anything again."
They've worked too long not to share this together. Lisa supported the family with her job at Dade City Realty when David was struggling on local weekend circuits, building cars with his legendary short-track-racing father, Buzzie, in their shop in Zephyrhills. Reutimann's career finally began to materialize two years ago, running a few Busch Series races with different teams. When he was hired by Waltrip, she was able to quit her job and take care of their new daughter.
"It's amazing," Lisa Reutimann said. "We went from living week to week, to where our lives are completely different now."
With a new house in Troutman, N.C., outside of Charlotte, money in the bank and 80 gallons of diesel in the coach, he could feel like he has escaped. Yet he remains close to his roots. Besides the Disney World trip, Reutimann anticipates working on his father's dirt car for East Bay Raceway more than anything else.
"I've never been one to live on the extravagant side anyway, but our house up in North Carolina is probably close to twice as big as we have in Florida," he said. "It was one of those 1,000 square-foot places, so it's not a big home by any means. I never dreamed we'd have the things we have now.
"We were so much into local racing you always live race to race and week to week and that's changed a little bit. That's something I certainly don't mind at all."
Lisa Reutimann admits that she and David always worried that their lives would never advance beyond weekend dirt tracks, no matter how hard he worked.
"David has just never given up on his dream and it finally materialized for him," she said. "I think there were instances when both of us wondered, "Gosh, is this ever going to work out?' But he just kept working at it, because that's all he has ever done or known is racing. It's not like he was going to do anything else at that point. He's just persevering."
Reutimann arrived in Homestead last November in a cramped race-day charter plane with members of Joe Nemechek's Busch team. A part-time fabricator for the Lakeland native at that time, he was still relatively anonymous. But that weekend, he was announced as Waltrip's driver and everything changed. Reutimann said he didn't think he was settling after dabbling in the more prestigious Busch Series, but he admits that as a "person who tends to worry about things anyway," there was apprehension.
"In the beginning I really didn't know what to expect from the truck series at all," he said. "I knew there were a couple years there where it seemed to be a little stagnant and a lot of people were kind of worried about it. But I don't know if I thought we were settling for anything. I was just happy to be in a full-time situation with a good team, because I know there's always the potential to do other stuff as well."
Reutimann admits his caravan is modest when compared to the million-dollar rolling palaces Nextel Cup drivers have driven around the country for them. He never even knew he could afford one until an accountant told him it made for a great tax write-off. But it has plenty of room for four, two televisions - "not one of those plasma deals like the Cup guys," he admitted sheepishly - a grill and plenty of room for Lisa and Emilia.
"She's going to be 3 here pretty quick," he said of his daughter's Jan.23 birthday. "She's a lot of fun right now, she kind of knows what's going on."
