Texas was tough on MWR by Kellyanne Lynch with thanks to Jess
4 November 2007
David Reutimann finished 43rd in the Dickies 500, today's Nextel Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. His #00 Burger King Camry was incredibly tight at the start of the race and sustained right front damage when Tony Raines' #96 cut across its nose. The crew pulled the right front fender but then had to pull the right rear when Paul Menard rear-ended David on a restart. The #00 was quite loose before it lost its engine on lap 94. David went to the garage and was officially declared out of the race on lap 107.
"It's a shame," David stated after his day ended. "That's just the way our luck has been going lately. Something broke in the motor. The car started off really tight and the guys got it freed up. We were running in the top-15, and all the sudden, we dropped a cylinder."
When asked what happened to his car, David said, "Something in the motor. We were struggling and got kind of jammed up early and killed the right front fender. Everybody stacked up on a restart, and somebody run through the right rear corner and then the motor blew up. That pretty much sums up our day." With a smile, he added, "Two more to go so we’ll see if we get through the rest of the year."
He then commented on how the #00 ran during the race. "You know, it started off and no, we weren’t very good from where we ended practice yesterday to where we started. They tuned on it and made it a little bit better but it was shaping up to be a long day and now it’s a short day."
Dale Jarrett also suffered misfortunes in his #44 UPS Toyota. He was wrapped up in the ninth caution on lap 219, when Casey Mears got loose and hit Tony Stewart. Dale slowed but was rear-ended by Kurt Busch's #2. He finished 38th.
"I didn't get to see it on TV," said his crew chief, Jason Burdett. "Dale said he thought he had a miss, and there was room to go around on the bottom on the backstretch. Before he could get there, whoever was behind him got into him and just sent him into the crash. Not much you can do once they all start stacking up, there's no where to go."
Burdett also discussed how the car ran this weekend. "Yesterday, we were really, really loose in practices. We did a lot of stuff to tighten up the car for today, and we went too far and got it pretty tight. We worked on it and got it where Dale could run decent lap times when he got out front -- a lap down. We hung right in there with the top-10 or 12 cars. I think we were going to end up okay, the way the race was going. We didn't go a second lap down, where a lot of cars did. Think we could have maybe salvaged a top-20 finish."
Meanwhile, car owner Michael Waltrip missed the field. Although he was 41st on the speed charts, slower top 35 cars were put in front of him and shut him out of the race.
The Nextel Cup's Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway will take place next Sunday. Coverage begins at 3:00pm ET on ABC. The Busch Series' Arizona.Travel 200 airs the day before at 4:00pm on ESPN2.