Late pit mistake ruins a strong day for Reutimann

DOVER, Del. -- David Reutimann has been the standard bearer this season for Michael Waltrip Racing, and his performance Sunday in his No. 44 Toyota at Dover International Speedway bore that out.

But as he left Dover's garage area Sunday evening following the Camping World RV 400, Reutimann looked like he had a hatchet buried in the back of his head.

Chased-Out Standings

Following Dover

Pos.	Driver	Pts.
1.	Martin Truex Jr.	249
2.	Bobby Labonte	245
3.	David Reutimann	230
4.	Michael Waltrip	227
5.	Kasey Kahne	215

• An unofficial list of the top-five non-Chase for the Sprint Cup competitors over the 10 Chase races:

A broken heart will do that, and so will a 17th-place finish that could have been quite a lot more.

Probably no team in the Sprint Cup garage has improved, across the board, more this season from last than MWR. And by scoring a team first: Three consecutive top-15 finishes, including ninth places at California and Richmond and leading the most laps -- more than a quarter of the race -- at Richmond's cutoff to the Chase race, Reutimann had proven he was solidly making the next step in his Cup career.

Dover was potentially going to be better than any of those three events, and probably Reutimann's fourth top-10 of the season. And then the race's 10th and final caution flew, with 48 laps to go.

Reutimann came to pit road running inside the top 10, where his car had been camped for virtually the entire race, and he left the service alley still in the top 10 after his Ryan Pemberton-led crew completed the stop.

But Reutimann was called for stopping outside his pit box and had to return for a one-lap penalty.

It happens. Twenty-four penalties were issued during Sunday's race, virtually all of them for pit road violations. But only one resulted in a one-lap penalty: Reutimann's. And he was devastated.

And being the man he is, who grew up racing on southern dirt tracks and gritty asphalt oval short tracks, he dodged nothing when he was asked what happened, and if anything had caused him to alter his entrance to his pit.

"I was just outside the box," Reutimann answered, twice, never slowing his resolute pace to leave the place.

It absolutely ruined his day, spoiled his streak and, despite a truly impressive performance on one of the circuit's tougher ovals, left him with nothing to smile about.

"You know, quite honestly [how well we performed all day] doesn't mean a whole lot, at this point," Reutimann said after drawing a deep breath. "It's hard for me to look at it any other way than negative. We had a good car and we should have finished a lot better.

"I just pitted outside the box and you go a lap down."

Reutimann was probably right. When the race restarted he was 21st, but he quickly gobbled up all the lap-down cars in front of him to get to 17th. Through a stretch with less than 15 laps to go, Reutimann's lap times were consistently quicker than leader Matt Kenseth's -- sometimes by as much as a couple tenths.

Another caution never flew, and Reutimann finished as far up in the rundown as he could get as a lap-down car.

It moved Reutimann up two spots to third in the unofficial "Chased-Out" point standings, the tally for non-Chase drivers who've done the best since the Chase started, two events ago at New Hampshire. Martin Truex Jr. finished 20th to take the lead, by four points in front of 14th-place Bobby Labonte.

The rest of the day included plusses and minuses for MWR. Team owner/driver Michael Waltrip in part took advantage of Reutimann's mistake to post his second top-10 of the season, putting his No. 55 Camry into 10th and jumping up one spot in the owner standings, to a safer 31st.

That bumped Waltrip 11 spots in the Chased-Out standings and into the top five.

"I'm just real proud of my team," Waltrip said before scrambling out of the venue to catch an airplane. "We qualified bad [but] I screwed up qualifying. To battle all day long and run good -- that's what it's all about. We spent enough Sundays just trying to stay out of the way and it's fun to race -- that's why I signed up for this job 25 years ago."

Waltrip started 40th but came through the field and was in position when it mattered. He credited his crew, and their chief, for that.

"Just a basic day," Waltrip said. "Bobby Kennedy called a great race, but we didn't pull no tricks -- we just out-ran a bunch of them."

Their rookie teammate Michael McDowell, however, battled an ill-handling No. 00 Toyota in the race's early and late stages and was 29th -- not a terrible finish, but one that cost McDowell two spots in the owner standings and moved him back to 36th, meaning he must qualify on time this week at Kansas Speedway.