Early in his childhood, David Reutimann spent his summers residing in New Jersey while his father Emil Buzzie Reutimann raced for a living winning track championships up and down the Eastern Seaboard. Visiting Dover International Speedway for the first time in the No. 17 NTN Bearings Toyota is special for the third generation driver, because his father raced there in the early 1970s.   

“We would migrate to the New Jersey area for my dad to race Big Block Modifieds at places like Dover, Reading and East Windsor,” said Reutimann. “We would go up there in the summer and go back to Florida in the winter. That’s the way he made his living. He raced all over. Going back and forth to that area, we became acquainted with several people. I’m looking forward to visiting some old friends.”

“I ran Dover back in the early ’70s with the All-Star Racing League,” said Buzzie Reutimann. “We raced there a couple of times in an old coupe type car. If I remember right, I had my old coupe 454 motor in it. I think I qualified at 135 mph. I ran fifth in the race only because other guys made pit stops and I didn’t. One week we would run on dirt and the next week we would run on pavement. We would run at Dover and then head over to Reading, Pennsylvania. We won track championships at places like Nazareth’s ½-mile Speedway in Pennsylvania, East Windsor Speedway in New Jersey, Orange County Fair Speedway in Middleton, New York and we twice captured the Syracuse 300. David was really young and he literally grew up in the pits out of the back of a station wagon.”

Eclipsing the bulk of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series schedule, David Reutimann’s season thus far has been bittersweet for the Raybestos Rookie points leader. Reutimann has garnered one Bud Pole Award, one Top-5, and three Top-10s in five starts occupying tenth in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series points standings. In the most recent event at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, Reutimann was running fifth when his night ended due to an engine failure.  

“We’ve had some strong runs in the No. 17 NTN Bearings Toyota Tundra, but we’ve incurred some bad racing luck,” said Reutimann. “Even though we had bad luck at Charlotte, we still had a solid run. That run gives us even more confidence heading into Dover.”

“Since I’ve only watched NASCAR races at Dover on television, I’ve talked to Joe Nemecheck, Michael Waltrip, Bobby Kennedy, Jason Overstreet and other guys that have had success at Dover before,” continued Reutimann. “I talked to Carl Edwards recently and he said that it's a really fast place with a lot of banking. A lot of drivers compare it to a big Bristol because it has some of its traits. Of course, Bristol is its own animal. I hear Dover is really fast and it carries a lot of corner speed. You are not off the throttle much, especially in qualifying at Dover. It should be pretty interesting.” 

Live coverage of the MBNA America 200 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event at Dover International Speedway is scheduled Friday, June 4th at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The 200-Lap event is slated to air live on SPEED Channel. MRN Radio will broadcast the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series schedule events.