FONTANA, Calif. -- David Reutimann had one heck of an August.

Last weekend, Michael Waltrip Racing announced a three-year extension to keep Reutimann in the organization. So what did he do to celebrate? Promptly go out and put his No. 44 Toyota on the front row at Bristol.

Things just kept getting better Sunday night at Auto Club Speedway, where Reutimann ran solidly in the top 10 for much of the night, taking the lead on Lap 184 before settling for a ninth-place finish in the Pepsi 500.

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We didn't luck into anything. We just fought hard all night and ended up with a pretty good finish.

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DAVID REUTIMANN

"I guess it's saying something when you leave here and you're disappointed with a top-10," Reutimann said. "I felt like we were a top-five car. We didn't luck into anything. We just fought hard all night and ended up with a pretty good finish.

"I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. On nights like [Sunday night], it doesn't seem all that hard when the cars drive like they do. I'm proud of my guys, they did a good job."

Like the rest of the competition, Reutimann and crew chief Ryan Pemberton knew they had nothing for eventual winner Jimmie Johnson unless they tried something radical. That's why the No. 44 crew bolted on only two tires during a pit stop following Robby Gordon's crash with 70 laps to go -- which gave them the lead, albeit only briefly.

"Some other guys took two," Reutimann said. "And I didn't think that was going to work. But they went out there and lost a little ground, but then it stabilized. So Ryan said, 'Let's just try to get our track position back by doing this.'

"And we gave up some positions right away -- and our car wouldn't take off anyway, so we probably would have given them up regardless -- but once we got going, we fell into a rythym there, running some decent times and we kind of leveled out."

The strategy worked well enough that the team considered a similar pit move, had the race stayed green the rest of the way. However, when Marcos Ambrose brought out the final caution on Lap 218, it made the decision easier.

"If we had come in under green there at the end, we might have thought about doing [two tires] again," Reutimann said. "At that point, we only had about 12 or 15 laps on our left-side tires versus 40-something there at the end. It was something I was a little bit worried about, but it all worked out at the end."

Reutimann admitted that he was somewhat surprised that his car's handling didn't change very much once the sun set.

"Everybody anticipated the track tightening up a lot, but I thought in the Nationwide race it did not," he said. "I didn't think the track was going to change just going off of what we learned last night. We started a little conservative, a little on the free side -- afraid it was going to go to the tight side -- and we spent all night tightening it up. Ryan and the guys did a good job. The pit stops were pretty good and the car drove good. That's what we need to do every week."

If there's one thing Reutimann and the rest of his crew have learned from this month, it's that qualifying is critical.

"Track position's incredibly important, but if you start up front, you get to race around guys you need to be racing around with," Reutimann said. "You watch their cars and see what they're doing and learn and you get better information. Qualifying up front is the key to helping us."

Dog days of summer? Not for David Reutimann.