A TUMS “FightS back fast” MOMENT
(For each of the 36 races during the 2011 Sprint Cup season, TUMS will provide a brief historical recap of a moment when a team fought back to overcome an obstacle, one that can easily be described as a TUMS “Fights Back Fast” Moment. This week, the focus is on Chicagoland Speedway).
REUTIMANN FINDS VINDICATION WITH WIN AT CHICAGOLAND
The date was July 10, 2010. David Reutimann, driver of the No. 00 TUMS Toyota from Michael Waltrip Racing, knew he had a fast race car at Chicagoland Speedway and was determined to take advantage of the opportunity in the Lifelock.com 400.
NOTE: TUMS is the sponsor of the TUMS Fast Relief 500, the seventh race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, at Martinsville Speedway on October 30.
His only other win came at Charlotte Motor Speedway just over a year earlier in a rain-shortened event. He wanted validation as a race winner in NASCAR’s premier series, a win with no asterisk.
Jeff Gordon, driver of the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, led laps 165-200 and looked as though it was his race to win. But Reutimann emerged strong during the final third of the race, vaulted into the lead, fell out of contention briefly during a final round of green-flag pit stops, but regained the lead when the pit cycle was complete.
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 99 Roush-Fenway Racing Ford, passed Gordon for second and was closing on Reutimann in the closing laps. But the Zephyrhills, Fla. native drove flawlessly, kept Edwards at bay and led the final 32 laps of the 267-lap event for his second-career victory.
“I heard so much stuff for winning a rain-shortened event … everybody said we didn’t earn it,” an emotional Reutimann said in victory lane. “Tonight, I don’t know what they can say about this one. I don’t even know what to say. I was tearing up pretty bad [in the closing laps]. There was no rain tonight. We earned this one; nobody gave it to us. That feels really good.”
