It happens every time. Win a Cup race, and just about everybody and their brother jumps on your bandwagon.

Just ask David Reutimann -- I'm sure he'd tell you. The good thing is, he's had a chance to experience the exultation of winning a Cup race twice: Last spring at Charlotte and last month at Chicagoland.

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To be able to make some kind of difference, or at least to contribute to people who are making a difference, I'm like most people. I was just so caught up in my own world and trying to get by with what I was trying to do, I never even really thought of giving back, I never really had the ability to give back -- and that was my mentality, that I didn't have the ability to give back.

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-- DAVID REUTIMANN

And there are good things that come out of that. For example, Reutimann was part of Chicagoland's dog-and-pony show this week when the track in Joliet, Ill., announced it would host the opener for the 2011 Chase.

But this story isn't about people jumping on Reutimann's bandwagon, this story is out to show winning hasn't changed one major component in Reutimann's life. That is, his commitment to giving back to the community around him and helping people through all spectrums of society -- but primarily in his home state of Florida.

In the week before he won at Chicagoland, Reutimann was at his "home" Cup track, Daytona International Speedway. There, he took a break in the schedule to make a morning-long trip to Camp Boggy Creek in Eustis, Fla., about an hour west of Daytona Beach.

It was a breakthrough moment in a lot of ways for Reutimann and his cousin, Shawn Reutimann, who's David's spotter at the race track and an integral member in planning and executing the major event involving the David Reutimann Foundation.

"I've lived in Florida the majority of my life, and up until a couple years ago, I never even knew [Boggy Creek] was there, or that a place like that even existed [in Florida]," David Reutimann said. But the wonderful thing about him -- his whole family for that matter -- is that knowing about it was all it took to flip the switch.

The Reutimanns have hosted a benefit golf tournament in November following the end of the NASCAR season for the past five years, primarily supporting Florida charities like Zephyrhills Meals on Wheels, which the Reutimann Foundation helped keep in business. It wasn't hard to put Boggy Creek on the list.

"I looked online and I thought, 'Wow! This is perfect. This is in our home state, this is in our backyard [so] let's take care of the people in our backyard,'" Shawn Reutimann said. "That's kind of how we got involved."

As the Reutimanns' golf tournament has grown, so has their support -- not only of Boggy Creek but everything they can handle.

"We're always thinking about what more we can do to help," Shawn Reutimann said. "It started out because me and my cousin, who owns the Silverado Golf and Country Club in Zephyrhills, Fla., came together with this idea to have a golf tournament. We started out raising $25,000 and in our fifth year we raised $100,000.

"David is doing a lot more as far as appearances and all of that money goes into the foundation. Everywhere we turn we are trying to find more ways to raise money. Coca-Cola has been able to put some money into it. We've been looking at maybe doing a bowling tournament in our hometown or maybe doing a race kinda like Tony Stewart does [at Eldora Speedway] out at East Bay [Raceway in Gibsonton, Fla.], which is our local track. Just little stuff like that -- anything we can do to put extra money into the David Reutimann Foundation."

Several people in Reutimann's party that day had been to the Petty family's Victory Junction Gang Camp in Randleman, N.C., which is a real testament to the corporate power and spirit of giving that's truly alive in the NASCAR community.

But none had been to Camp Boggy Creek, a more typical camp environment in a much more bucolic setting than Victory Junction -- which is pure NASCAR. The ironic thing is that Boggy Creek, which was founded by the late actor Paul Newman, was the seed in the late Adam Petty's fertile young mind that's grown into Victory Junction.

It certainly made an impression on the Reutimanns, who were graced with the camp's version of a "standing ovation" -- everyone in the dining hall standing with hands over heads in the shape of an "O" -- when Reutimann presented a check for $35,000. (Continued)