Did big weekend deliver? By most accounts, it did

Pride. Honor. Respect.

These are three words that were totally appropriate heading into Memorial Day weekend -- an event that at the same time pays tribute to our country's fallen military veterans while also offering the year's most potentially scintillating day of motorsports.

Let me know where it ended up resting from your perspective, but particularly in NASCAR country, thanks to some inordinately wet weather in the greater Concord, N.C., area -- pride, honor and respect were about all that was left after each of the two main events were rain-shortened.

Moment of silence

At 3 p.m. ET Monday, drivers and crewmen take a moment of silence to honor our men and women in service.

• More

But it shouldn't be in short supply. Neither David Reutimann nor Mike Bliss should be sneered at for ending up in front of the respective Sprint Cup and Nationwide races. This season, each has spent plenty of time near the front of their respective divisions to make Monday and Saturday's wins, respectively, non-anomalies.

In the aftermath of Reutimann's sodden victory early Monday evening -- and believe me, after he spent a couple hours standing outside his race car in the rain I can see no way he could have continued racing the last couple hundred miles without changing into some dry gear -- a buddy asked me what I thought the general consensus in the garage would be of Reutimann's win.

It's tough to say, but like any other atypical decision that delivers big results, admiration is sometimes delivered grudgingly, but it's still deserved. In Reutimann's case, everyone had the chance to analyze the same weather data, and yet when it came time to pull the trigger and make the call, Reutimann's crew chief, Rodney Childers, didn't hesitate.

Look at it this way, by the end of this season the memory of how Reutimann ended up in Victory Lane -- or wherever they celebrated this win -- will fade. And certainly five, 10 or 50 years from now, when the 100th 600-miler at Charlotte is run, no one will remember how a right turn when everyone else took the left-hand to go down pit road paid off for Michael Waltrip Racing's first Cup Series victory.

And the biggest reason why pride, honor and respect should flow Reutimann's way in copious amounts? More than likely it won't be the last time this season he gets to celebrate -- but here's hoping his dad, Buzzie, doesn't have a dirt race that weekend, either. (Continued)