Conversation: David and Buzzie Reutimann (cont'd)

Q: Was there any choice for each of you guys but to go into racing because each of your dads raced and was successful at it?

Buzzie: It was just what we wanted to do. I guess some people like to golf, and some people like to fish. We just like to race.

My dad raced, and we just grew up around racetracks and tinkering with cars. My dad had a Chevrolet [dealership] and we had a junkyard out back, so we were always going out there and fixing something up, or siphoning the gas out of an old junk car to put it into something we had running, to get it going.

Of course, David's mom wanted him to be a doctor or a lawyer, but I don't think she had a chance on that.

David: I definitely had the option not to do it, but I never thought it was an option. It was just kind of a no-brainer for me and I felt it was what I wanted to do.

Q: What was the big attraction for you guys? Was it the sound, the smell, the color or what?

David: I can remember sitting in the stands and watching him win races and how people would cheer for him and react to him. The fact that he could give some little kid in a wheelchair a trophy after a feature win and just make the kid's day, I thought was pretty special.

I kind of identified right away that that was something that not everybody had the opportunity to do. But I've always just enjoyed the driving part, just you and the car and you're trying to make it do something it doesn't want to -- especially on the dirt tracks.

So part of it was that, but a large part of it was just that I loved to drive anything.

Buzzie: I think, back then, it was being able to put something together yourself -- to put it together and build something, because we used to get everything out of the junkyard and go out and win with it.

It would give you a greater feeling of accomplishment when you could do something like that.

Q: Did your wives fall in love with Mr. Reutimann, or Mr. Reutimann the racer?

Buzzie: We like to think it was because of us just being like we are.

David: But the thing about it is, I don't think that any of them were ever around when we weren't racing. In my case, when Lisa and I got married I had been racing for -- heck, [dad] was racing since he was 13, so I don't think there was ever a time that with the people you were around, you weren't the racer.

But there are also two different sides to every personality and sometimes me as the racer is not a lot of fun to be around at all. But I think that me as a person, a lot of the time, is a little more pleasant.

I think I can be tolerated a little bit better when I'm out of race mode as opposed to when I'm not.

Buzzie: I guess it's like Howard Cosell used to say, 'The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.' A lot of times when it's the thrill of victory, we're a lot easier to be around than in a defeat.

Q: If you weren't in racing, what do you think you'd be doing?

Buzzie: That's a hard question, because I don't think we know anything else.

David: I think both of us are good fabricators, so we could probably do something like be machinists. But I don't know. I think I'd be in trouble if I didn't race.

I think, for me, I'd be building racecars or chassis or doing stuff like that, because I ended up being pretty decent at it. But that was because [dad] was in the business already, so if he hadn't of been in the business to start with, I don't have a clue what I'd be doing.

Buzzie: It goes back so many years and I think it was just that we enjoyed building things, fabricating it and putting something together. We could build whole cars.

So it would have to be something where you could build something and then to see what you had accomplished after you were through.

David: I think that there's nothing more fulfilling than starting with just a rack of 22-foot length, inch-and-three-quarter .095 tubing or something and building a car, hanging the body and doing everything to it -- running the brake lines and wiring -- and then going out and racing it and winning with it, knowing that it was your creation.

That's definitely one of the fun parts of it. (Continued)