It was meant to be a joke, like calling a big man "Tiny" or a bald man "Curly." Once after a particularly good run David Reutimann walked into the shop referring to himself as "the Franchise," a nickname he had picked up watching another sport on television. The reaction from his teammates was laughter, exactly the result the always-self-effacing Sprint Cup driver had hoped to achieve. Now, the thing has taken on a life of its own. The television networks, always quick to act like an appendage of the garage area, have eaten it up. At Martinsville the moniker replaced Reutimann's name over the window opening of his No. 00 race car, and even a security guard greeted him as such last Thursday at Texas.

“

There's always somebody that's going to come along that maybe can do it better and maybe can do it faster and maybe do a better job. That's kind of what drives me.

”

DAVID REUTIMANN

Reutimann's once-private joke has gone public, something the 39-year-old driver for Michael Waltrip Racing is both flattered by and careful of at the same time.

"I'm not the face of Michael Waltrip Racing. Michael Waltrip is," he said last week at Texas Motor Speedway. "I'm just a guy Michael Waltrip gave an opportunity to. I'm trying to do a good job for him, because he put a lot of faith in me. He put a guy in a Cup car that nobody knew anything about, most times couldn't say my last name correctly, and just let me go with it. He gave me the freedom to screw up with it, and I did plenty of that. When I was down he picked me back up and kept giving me opportunities. In the end, I work for Michael Waltrip Racing and drive for Michael Waltrip. He's the face of our company. I'm just an employee."

Still, "the Franchise" sticks. It's funny in an ironic sort of way, given that Reutimann is as humble a fellow as there is piloting stock cars on NASCAR's premier series, a guy who's made a long climb up from the regional touring ranks and remembers where he came from, perhaps the only Chase-contending Sprint Cup driver who can walk relatively unmolested through the garage area once he's changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He really is the last person you'd expect to see tooting his own horn, much less associating himself with publicity hounds like Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips or former Houston Rockets guard Steve Francis, athletes who applied the "Franchise" tag to themselves -- and meant it.

So yes, it's a joke. But it might not be a joke for much longer. Because efforts like the one Reutimann turned in Sunday at Texas -- where he started from the pole, lost a lap because of a pit-road error, and clawed his way back to an 11th-place finish -- further reinforce the notion that it's time to recognize him as the real thing, a driver capable of winning races and vying for a playoff berth. He's shown strength on short tracks and intermediate courses, greatly improved his efforts as a qualifier in an age where track position means so much, and posted finishes of 12th or better in five of his seven starts this season. Granted, the year is young. But contenders are already being identified. Drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, once deep in the points, are on the march. Any flukes are being weeded out. Anyone left standing can be considered legitimate.

And Reutimann is most certainly still standing, 11th in points after his gutsy effort at Texas, a race he probably would have been in position to win had he not overrun his pit box on an early stop. With his ability to win poles and run up front, he's beginning to look more and more like a driver who can make it to Victory Lane this season. And if that happens, the joke is up. Sure, Waltrip is the founder, the architect, the force of personality behind the team that bears his name. But he's also fading, down to 21st in points after a promising start, and may consider retirement after the season if he doesn't produce results. Then there's Reutimann, on the brink of doing something that seemed impossible at Michael Waltrip Racing just a year ago. That happens, and he'll be "the Franchise" for real.

Of course, he won't get ahead of himself.

"You don't want to get too comfortable in your situation," he said. "There's always somebody that's going to come along that maybe can do it better and maybe can do it faster and maybe do a better job. That's kind of what drives me. Don't ever let your guard down, and you just keep going as hard as you can all the time. It's just like there's a bulldozer or something behind you, and if you slow down or stop a little bit, it's just going to run over you. Never let your guard down, even though sometimes you want to. You just want to sit back and look around and enjoy it a little bit, because you know how hard it is to do. At the same time, my mentality is, I can't do this because something else could go wrong or something could do this or something could mess up. Maybe one day I can do that, but as it is right now, that's just kind of my make, I guess. Hard to change."

Even so, these are heady days for a driver whose success this season is far from overnight. Though his father, Buzzie, was a dirt racing legend who in 1963 finished 10th at Tampa's Golden Gate Speedway in his lone Cup-level start, the younger Reutimann hasn't been given anything. The first time I interviewed him was in July of 2002 at Myrtle Beach Speedway, when Reutimann was competing in the old All-Pro touring series, at the time among the bushiest of NASCAR's bush leagues. He was the envy of a lot of other drivers because he had a real sponsor -- Pennzoil -- and a professional-looking transporter. He was having a good year, and would go on to finish second that night, as the Cup circuit raced a million miles away at gleaming new Chicgaoland Speedway.

Still, what were his chances of getting noticed? "It's a long shot, let's put it that way," he said then. Well, now that long shot is paying off.

"I've always dreamed about winning races and leading races and beating guys like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards," Reutimann said at Texas. "Coming to the checkered, passing them on the outside, I can do all kinds of stuff in my head. It's my head, so I can win the race, I guess, if I want in there. At the same time, a couple of years ago, those kinds of visions in your head seemed a long, long way off. Now they feel like they're a little bit closer, to be honest. Not to say we're there yet, but man, at least I can see the front. I can see the guys I'm racing with. I haven't really thought a whole lot about what it might feel like to win. I don't want to dwell too much on there. I just want to get there and react to whatever happens at that point."

It would surely be an emotional scene, given the so many years of toil that Reutimann's extended family has invested in racing. It would be a triumphant validation for Michael Waltrip Racing, an organization that shortly after its founding seemed on the verge of collapse. And it would be an unmistakable sign that "the Franchise" had arrived in earnest.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.