CONCORD, N.C. -- If anyone needed validation of David Reutimann's victory in May's rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Michael Waltrip Racing's lead driver might've provided it Saturday night.

And before anyone writes off Reutimann's 15th-place finish, be aware he was coming forward at the end of the NASCAR Banking 500, and it was preceded by a couple IVs and punctuated by Reutimann figuring out the cleanest way to vomit inside his helmet in the process.

Like so many other things in racing, preparation was the key.

“

One notch above death, I think, is where we're at right now. Any time you finish up here, you're not exactly ready to go run a marathon or nothing. I won't have any problem sleeping.

”

DAVID REUTIMANN

"Thankfully we had things in [the car] for just such an occasion, because I was throwing up right until I got in the car," Reutimann said. "I had some big Ziploc bags in there, yellows would come out and -- I know it sounds terrible -- but I'd fill 'em up, zip 'em up and fling 'em out the window.

"I feel bad for the cleanup guys that had to clean that stuff up, but you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. The guys gave me a couple bags and some wet towels to try to keep me going --- [they] were able to keep fluids in me and stuff like that. I just needed to have some place for the stuff that was coming out to go.

"Oddly enough, both times that it happened it was under a yellow, so thankfully it ended up being pretty minimal. I guess when you have time to settle down for a second and relax, when you do that -- or maybe I was just thinking about it, I don't know.

"But either way, I wouldn't recommend it."

Despite his illness, Reutimann ran the fourth-fastest last lap of the 500-mile race. It was faster than 67 percent of the Chase field, as fast as Chasers Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart and slower than only the top-three finishers -- just .18 seconds off the pace of the race winner, Jimmie Johnson.

It certainly impressed Johnson, the three-time defending series champion and Chase leader.

"I can't imagine it -- that's manning-up, for sure," Johnson said in Victory Lane amidst a mob of Lowe's well-wishers. "Damn, I hate that for him, not only when you're nauseous and not feeling right, but your equilibrium's thrown off. So for him to just keep it between the walls and not hit anything is pretty damned amazing, too."

Reutimann, after he slowly climbed from his No. 00 Toyota, either looked like a 100-year-old man or a totally-fit Cup driver who'd just done 1,000 miles around Lowe's dauntingly-fast oval as he slowly, painfully walked to the side entrance of his car's hauler.

Is he a tough guy? He said he would pass on doing a 400-lap late model race he'd planned on Sunday at Winchester, Ind.; but that he hadn't yet called off participating in a two-day tire test at Lowe's scheduled Monday and Tuesday.

But it's a fact that Reutimann, even though he was still moving slowly, did come out of his hauler, bundled in a parka and a wool ski cap, less than 20 minutes after he got out of his car; and after a brief visit by four fully-equipped fire department paramedics -- though he declined any treatment.

"One notch above death, I think, is where we're at right now," Reutimann said. "Any time you finish up here, you're not exactly ready to go run a marathon or nothing. I won't have any problem sleeping.

"This place is tough. You have to stay on your toes the whole time. Everybody is racing hard and the track was cold, so it was fast and you've got to drive the crap out of the thing the whole time."

For Reutimann, that meant the whole 500 miles he only fell out of the top 20 once, for a short segment between laps 200 and 300 when a lug nut issue caused an early pit stop.

Reutimann's illness cropped up literally overnight. He said he first began to feel something Friday evening during the Nationwide Series drivers' meeting, but he wasn't bad during the Dollar General 300, where he finished 20th.

"I thought maybe I was just coming down with something or whatever, and then [Friday] night about three or four in the morning I woke up feeling really bad," Reutimann said. "Then I got up [Saturday] and it just got worse and worse. Around one o'clock I was starting to wonder how things were going to go."

That afternoon his team contacted fellow Cup driver Dave Blaney, whose Prism Motorsports team didn't qualify. Blaney, wearing a matching Aaron's uniform, stood in the back of the team's pit stall until the restart after their final pit stop, at lap 295, when he picked up his helmet and trudged away with Reutimann set to start in 18th.

Ironically, that was about the same time that Reutimann said he felt his worst.

"With about 30 [laps] to go, we were struggling pretty bad," Reutimann said. "I was good and I was like, 'Man, I'm fine, I'm going to be okay.' Then it was just like I fell off a cliff there. The yellows helped a little bit. I was having a hard time concentrating and kept getting sick [but] towards the end, the car got better and better as we went.

"The guys did a good job and they gave me a good car to drive. If it would have been something really, really bad then we wouldn't have been even remotely competitive, so I'm proud of my guys."

Beyond having Blaney on stand-by, Reutimann said besides the IVs and padding the right side of his head rest a little more, he did nothing special to either prepare for, or get through the race.

Reutimann said it was Saturday afternoon before he realized he might need relief, and right before race time before he took the IVs.

"That's all you really could do," Reutimann said. "You could do that or you could get out [of the car]. Those were the two choices. It doesn't matter who you are, nobody ever wants to give up your ride.

"Dave Blaney was there and I appreciate him coming down. Dave probably would have run better than I did, really. I waited my whole life to go Cup racing -- so as long as I still have a pulse, I'm going to stay in the car if I can -- as long as it's not going to affect the overall performance of the car.

"If I'm just not doing the job then I need to get out because it's more than just me involved here, it's a lot of other guys."

Blaney said he felt a lot of empathy for Reutimann, who he saw when he arrived at the track between 3 and 4 p.m.

"He looked bad, but he said he was going to try to go all the way, and they just wanted me here, just in case," Blaney said while the field circulated under caution, just before he left the pits. "I can relate -- nobody wants to get out unless you have to. I didn't want to see David get out of that car, but if he did, I'd be happy to jump in it."

In the end, it didn't happen, and Reutimann's crew chief Rodney Childers had one more reason to believe in his guy.

"He's hard-headed," Childers said through a grin. "He did a really good job. The best of the guys that have been in this sport for a long time don't have a clue what it takes to stay in the race car like that -- some do, some don't. But you can't really ask any more out of him. To get a top 15 out of a guy that can barely walk and barely knows where he's at is pretty good.

"The guys did a good job and we had a really good car. It was a team effort and there'll be other days where I'm not feeling so good or somebody else on the team's not feeling so good and it's the same kind of deal -- we all stick together and do the best we can do every single week and that's really all that matters."