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Notes & Quotes from David Reutimann’s #99 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry Hauler Chat at Nashville Superspeedway Today, March 21, 2008

Courtesy Toyota PR

How unique is Nashville Superspeedway to other tracks you compete on?

“This track has two very distinctly different corners -- one and two are pretty high speed corner and three and four seems like you have to use a little more brake and it's a little harder to make the thing rotate in the center at that point.  All in all, the place is cool and I love coming here.  It's kind of a tricky surface.  The one thing that is consistent about it is in most cases it will take on rubber and the characteristics of the track will change a little bit due to that.  Temperature-wise it's not as sensitive as you see most of the pavement race tracks be -- most of the concrete tracks are forgiving in that respect.”

How do you feel about the weather prediction here this weekend?

“We've seen everything as we've seen rain and snow this year -- a little bit of everything.  It's nice to come to Nashville and it looks to be a beautiful couple days.  Hopefully we'll get a good crowd out here and have a good Nationwide race.”

How tough is it to race on a holiday weekend?

“I think it's harder on your families than it is on (yourself).  You're going to the track and doing a job but then you're obviously trying to get home and spend as much time with them as you can.  If things work out correctly, I'll still have Sunday off, which is something I won't have much of all year.  I'm looking forward to that and spending Easter with them.  I have a six year-old daughter, so Easter is pretty fun with her.  We have fun with that.  It's part of the job and I don't know if you'll always have opportunities to run both series in very competitive cars, so when the opportunities come up and the fact that I just love to drive, even on the bad days it's still the best job in the world.”

Do you actually hide the eggs yourself?

“I'm a pretty good egg hider.  I actually hide them well enough that I can't remember where the ones we don't find are.  That's the one thing I do enjoy.  We'll hide them everywhere.  Last year the hardest one to find was when I hid it in the tailpipe of my truck and she found it, but stuffed it in there farther and I had to crank it up to get it to blow out.  I don't know that we'll do that again, but I enjoy it and we have a lot of fun running around the yard.  I'm just a big kid anyways.  We go real eggs and color them, but we do have some plastic ones that we'll put candy in.  I put the plastic ones in the more high-risk areas.  We do a little bit of both.  I'm an old school guy and I like to boil the egg, put it in the dye and do all that other stuff.  It's a lot of work, but it just feels more like Easter.”

What would it mean to take a guitar trophy away from here in the NNS just like you did in NCTS a few years ago?

“The Nashville guitar is one of the coolest trophies on the planet that any motorsports has to offer.  All race tracks cool trophies, but everyone knows about the guitar from Nashville and everybody wants one.  The fact that I was able to get my first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win here for Toyota and carry a guitar home -- all that does is make you really greedy with the fact that you want another one.  I've had some pretty good runs in this area and I feel like I have an opportunity to do that.  My other (guitar) is getting a little lonely and I'd like to have two.  I don't play a lick -- I just like to look at it and realize what all that went to get that.  It was a long road where we had our ups and downs to be able to win that race and get one of the coolest trophies.  I have right now two of the coolest trophies -- the guitar from Nashville and the Elvis trophy that Memphis gives -- those are two really special trophies and I have both of them.  I'm pretty proud of that.”

What's the key to practicing here and getting ready for the race?

“The main deal is to get out there.  We're in a little different format where we have tapered spacer plate so the motor has less horsepower.  We need to go out there and see what we need to do to make the car go fast.  The cars have a tendency to be tight from the center-off and now with the less horsepower, if you make the car tight from the center-off, it's really tight.  You can't horse it around and make it free.  We'll concentrate a lot on making the thing turn.  I don't think forward bite is going to be an issue because of the less horsepower.  You just make your car free and rotate really good to make sure you can get back to the gas quicker than the next guy.”

How's the second year for Toyota in Cup and Nationwide going?

“It's very good.  I think the benefit we have and all the Toyota teams have to get our engines, motors from Toyota Racing Development (TRD) is the fact that we all have the same motors and all within a certain percentage of one another or they don't go out the door.  It's good to come here and know you have a really good piece and you have the same motor as the other guys you race against in Toyotas.  I think right now Toyota's doing a great job with their motor package.  They make great horsepower and we are getting tremendous amounts of support from those guys, whether it be wind-tunnel, seven post time and stuff like that -- it's helping all of our teams.  And, we share a lot of information, so all those things combine help the Toyota teams be successful because there's so few of us over here.”

How long does it take you to adjust between the different cars in Cup and Nationwide?

“It seems to take me about five laps to figure out what I'm driving.  I have a tendency to over drive.  If I get out of the Nationwide car and get in the Cup car, I have a tendency to over drive the Cup car.  They're already going faster because they have more horsepower and the overall design of the car doesn't like to be over driven.  I'll mess around for three or four laps and my spotter will remind me -- hopefully that transition will become two or three laps at some point.  It takes me a couple laps to shake out what I was doing before and transfer over to the other stuff.”

Are you looking forward to getting your new colors next weekend in Martinsville?

“New colors, new sponsor and new number -- hopefully we'll get another good finish there and help move us up in the points and maybe make our position a little more solid.  We'd like to be locked in that ever-present top-35 and move forward from there.”

Is there an emotional feeling to give up the No. 00 and move to the No. 44?

“I'm disappointed a little bit that I have to give up the number, but at the same time I never thought I'd have the opportunity to race at what I feel like is the top series in the world with my family number.  I had that opportunity for a little over a year and I'm grateful to have just had that.  The No. 00 is very special to me, but the 44 is my number now.  I've driven a lot of other cars that haven't been 00 in the past with the 17 and 99, now the 44.  Bottom line is after you strap in you don't know what number you're driving you just know what your job is.  I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to drive that number, but also grateful to drive the 44.”

Replacing Dale Jarrett is a tremendous opportunity?

“You're driving Dale Jarrett's car and he's been instrumental in getting me the opportunity to drive for UPS and be a part of that program.  I don't want to go out there and disappoint certainly him or anyone else at Toyota or Michael Waltrip Racing.  We have our work cut out for us and have a lot to do.  You never go in to replace a guy like Dale Jarrett, you just go in there and try to drive a car he drove at one time.  It’s a pretty tall order and some big shoes to fill -- we have that opportunity and I'm trying to make the most of it.”

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