The Franchise Takes The Pole in Texas

David Reutimann will pace the field on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 from Texas Motor Speedway. Teammates Marcos Ambrose and Michael Waltrip will line up from the 11th and 34th positions respectively.

FORT WORTH, Texas (April 3, 2009) -- David Reutimann is trying to live up to his nickname ‘The Franchise’ by scoring his second-career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole today with a time of 28.344 seconds at Texas Motor Speedway for the Samsung 500 on Sunday.

“Winning the pole today for Aaron’s and our organization shows we are doing what we are supposed to do,” said Reutimann, driver of the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry. “I keep saying it over and over again, but three years is not a long time to have a full-time Cup race team. You appreciate these times and the people that were around when times were tough and stayed with us. Now things are a lot better and I am just happy for everybody at Michael Waltrip Racing because everyone there works really hard. They deserve it.”

The Zephyrhills, Fla.-native also earned one of his three NASCAR Nationwide Series poles at Texas Motor Speedway behind the wheel of the No. 99 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota Camry on November 3, 2007. His first Sprint Cup pole position for Michael Waltrip Racing came in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Winning any pole is important not only for the obvious stuff like track position, pit selection and all those things, but for the morale for your guys,” Reutimann said. “It’s to show them that all the hoops they jump through week in and week out sometimes actually do pay off. It comes down to the guys that are working on your car and they’re doing a tremendous job. Rodney (Childers--crew chief) and my guys are awesome and I wouldn't trade them for anything. At the end of the day, it’s more for the guys at the shop and the guys on the road that make your life a lot easier I think. That’s why it’s important to me.”

Reutimann gave a lot of credit to the Michael Waltrip Racing teams, but in the end, the real person he attributed his growth and success to was his team owner.

“I’m just a guy that Michael Waltrip gave an opportunity to,” Reutimann said. “He put a guy in a Cup car that nobody new anything about. Most people couldn’t even say my last name correctly. He gave me the freedom to screw up when I did. When I was down, he picked me back up and kept me going. He kept giving me opportunities. In the end, I work for Michael Waltrip Racing and I drive for Michael Waltrip. He is the face of our company.”
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Another strong qualifying effort for Marcos Ambrose has the Australian starting 11th (28.538 seconds) for the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday in the No. 47 Clorox® Toyota Camry. “It was a good run,” Ambrose said. “I didn’t quite get enough out of it. We unloaded good to start practice today and it hurt us doing too many changes and then the track caught up with us. We have a good starting spot for Clorox® on Sunday so I feel good about it.”

Ambrose and his JTG-Daugherty Racing team have two practices left tomorrow before taking the green flag for the 334-lap event on Sunday.

“Tomorrow we just need to work through a lot of different set-ups,” Ambrose said. “We need to try to make the car good on long run. I feel like I race better than I qualify right now for some reason so I need to work on my qualifying. I just want to put myself in a good position on Sunday and hopefully get another top-15.”