CORNELIUS, N.C. — No. 00 Aaron’s/HP—2010 Partner of the Year Toyota driver David Reutimann likes to race at Auto Club Speedway and has the numbers to prove it. The Michael Waltrip Racing driver has averaged a 13th-place finish and scored the eighth most points of any NASCAR Sprint Cup driver in the last five races at the Fontana, Calif. track. Reutimann’s No.00 Toyota will carry a special paint blue-and-while scheme this weekend honoring Hewlett-Packard of Palo Alto, Calif.
QUOTES
What is it that you like about racing and qualifying at Auto Club Speedway? “I don’t know of anything in particular. It’s a big sweeping type race track and my guys do a good job preparing for that qualifying and stuff. I don’t know that it’s anything that I’m doing. We just seem to have a decent package as far as qualifying goes there. We’ve run okay in the past at that race track too.”
Were you sorry to see Auto Club Speedway lose a race date?
“You hate to see any race track lose a race. You wish there was enough to go around and wish everybody could have a race and everybody could have two. I know that it seemed like the crowd was down in a lot of situations and they felt it necessary to remove some. I’m not glad that it lost one — I like going out there. At the same time, it has to be economically feasible for race tracks to do that. The way the crowds were down at that given time — who knows, if they get things built back up maybe California could get another date. Maybe it seemed like the right call at the right time.”
Do you highlight Auto Club Speedway on the calendar based on the success of MWR’s intermediate program? “I like a lot of the bigger race tracks. I like California, but I don’t so much like Michigan and those tracks are really, really similar as far as the overall layout is concerned. They definitely drive differently and they act differently. The bigger race tracks — the mile-and-a-half’s and the bigger race tracks, we seem to have a good baseline deal and we seem to go well there. I always look forward to going to those places. I look forward to going almost everywhere, but the bigger race tracks I think are some places that we really seem to accelerate at and excel at. We work really hard on the race tracks that we’re not as good at to get better, but the intermediate tracks seem to be suiting our program right now.”
ADDITIONAL NOTES OF INTEREST
· Career Numbers: In 139 career Sprint Cup Series starts, Reutimann has two wins, 11 top-fives, 23 top-10s and three career pole awards and led 327 laps.
· Did You Know: HP, Aaron’s 2010 Partner of the Year, is based in Palo Alto, Calif. and serves more than one billion customers in more than 170 countries on six continents. HP ships more than 1 million printers per week and 48 million PC units annually. HP helps 50 million customers store and share over 4 billion photos online.
· On The Road Again: Reutimann hit the road early this week for several sponsor obligations. On Tuesday he attended the Aaron’s Managers Meeting in Kissimmee, Fla. and headed out to the West Coast early to attend Toyota Motorsports Day on Wednesday in Torrence, Calif.
· Social Winning: Fans can win an autographed Reutimann hat from Aaron’s when the No. 00 logs a top-10 finish. To win you must follow Aarons @AaronsSports on Twitter or become a fan on at www.Facebook.com/AaronsSports.
