Wrapping up the Chicago experience.....while wandering through the post-race infield

  David Reutimann's crew....and what's that toucan doing out on pit road? (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   JOLIET, Ill.
  "Beer tax," one infield fan, relaxing in a lounge chair next to his motorcoach, half-heartedly insisted to a wandering fan. "No, just kidding."
   Meandering through the curiously mellow infield camping crowd late Saturday night offered opportunity to ponder just who are the NASCAR fans these days.
  The grandstands themselves, those 75,000 brightly colored seats, were maybe only three-quarters-full at best. Not a great crowd up there.
  But out here across the asphalt it was a different story. Not sure just how much of the race they can actually see, but the ambience is certainly delightful. And the infield was packed, with hundreds of very nicely appointed RVs.
   It was late after the oddly uneventful Chicago 400, and the fans were still partying and barbecuing well after David Reutimann's surprising victory...but more your upscale-cool suburban partying than the raucous recreational socializing one might have expected in years past at a NASCAR race.
    After all, this isn't a tenting crowd but a motorhome set that appreciates creature comforts. And if there was an old roustabout-converted school bus out here, it was well-disguised.
 
  

    When you can blow by Jeff Gordon, like David Reutimann (00) did Saturday night, you've got your act together (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
  

   Perhaps this is the other part of the NASCAR question these days – that 'Where are the fans?'
  Well, judging the last several races it's not a lack of interest in the sport as much as it is a matter of cost: cheap seats and campground spots are easy sells, but the high-dollar seats are more difficult, particularly when paired with the typically outrageous hotel costs (why can't NASCAR executives do the politicking necessary to eliminate that gouge?).
   But then sometimes what goes around comes around. Checking out hotels for some upcoming races, at Indianapolis for example, those places that were charging $249 a night for the Brickyard weekend have now cut the prices to $129. Though how much of a walk-up/drive-up crowd the Speedway will get now, with that 400 just days away, remains to be seen.
   Maybe these NASCAR speedways should be offering tickets with decent hotel rates included, and not $170 bucks a night or whatever. (Hey, we've got good ad space available on mikemulhern.net for that!)
   Another issue here: This isn't Chicago exactly.
   The Art Institute and the Loop, Lincoln Park and Old Town, Streeterville and Wrigleyville – and all those great Chicago restaurants and sights and sounds in what Carl Sandburg called 'the city of big shoulders' (http://carl-sandburg.com/chicago.htm ) are a brisk 45 minutes up the Interstate. (And avoid the Eisenhower Expressway on Saturdays, if you can.)
  
  

    Chicagoland Speedway does look pretty nice on a warm summer's evening....but just how close is the relationship with Chicago itself? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   What we've got is what we've got, and that's a huge expanse of rural farmland next to legendary Route 66 (now rebadged as Illinois 53).
   But there should be more connection between Chicagoland Speedway and Chicago itself. (Too bad, perhaps, that Chip Ganassi's Chicago Motor Speedway, up the road in Midway, was so land-locked.) Standing here in the infield, the heart of the third-biggest market in the country seems light-years away. We might as well be standing in the middle of a cornfield....which, come to think of it, we are.
   Craig Rust, now running this track for the France family, says he may reconsider the 'two-day weekend' package he inherited when he took over the speedway, because fans have told him they want more time here.
   After all, a NASCAR weekend is more than just a weekend at the track. Well, in many of this sport's venues, and certainly here in greater Chicago.
   Maybe one answer is to do like the Wood brothers just did – come a day or two early, or stay a day or two late. They were part of the 21,000 Wednesday night at the White Sox game.  Come a day early, stay a day late.....maybe not a bad way to package a NASCAR weekend, in a prime venue like this.
   But then what is the target audience for this track? How many different target audiences? And just how to target each.....
    
  

    Bill Elliott (red 21) and Robby Gordon (7) escaped this brutal crash unscathed (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   Curious that owner Michael Waltrip – the long-struggling team boss who risked it all to put this thing together back in 2007, the Daytona 500 winner and Dale Earnhardt Jr. pusher-teammate, and a man well-known for his self-deprecating humor (much like Reutimann too)  -- wasn't around to celebrate his team's biggest victory, David Reutimann's sprint away from Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon.
   Waltrip had to leave this track and fly to Iowa to do TV color for Saturday's ARCA race and Sunday's Truck race.
   Ty Norris, the team's number two (and the man who helped the late Dale Earnhardt build DEI), has been with Waltrip throughout this high-drama, sometimes heartbreaking adventure: "Here's a guy that sacrificed everything...He put every dime he ever won in 25 years, and then everything that the bankers would possibly let him borrow, into this race team.
   "At the end of 2007 we were on the brink.. Rob Kauffman came in and secured us. And Toyota said 'It's going to be okay, because your success story long-term will be Toyota's success story.'
    "Those guys believed in us.'
   That a key aspect to this win – because this Toyota team is pretty much a 'factory' effort, compared to the Joe Gibbs operation, that does most of its work in-house.
    So Toyota officials have been banking a lot on Waltrip's guys making a go of it....which was certainly a question that first year or so, when DNQs were so embarrassing.
   But slowly, methodically, patiently Waltrip and his men have kept taking steps forward...sometimes almost painfully slow.
   However there was nothing slow about Reutimann here, no asterisk by this win.
  
  

    Michael Waltrip (L): Finally breaking through. GM Ty Norris (R) (Photos: Toyota Motorsports)
  

   Norris called this win "a huge statement.
   "I think, more than anything else, it's redemption for David. I'm probably most proud of that."
   While the race itself may have been less than thrilling – if the tires have to be tough enough to handle 250-degree temps, well, that may be a problem still unresolved here – the finish was a good one.
   Rodney Childers, Reutimann's crew chief two years now, might not  be a household name, like Chad Knaus, but his performance here in Saturday night's Chicago 400 certainly boosts his standing in the NASCAR garage.
   Childers is one of those quiet, competent types who gets little TV time. But that may be changing, if he and Reutimann can use this win to launch themselves into playoff contention. They came out of the 400 15th in the standings and less than 100 points off the playoff cut.
    While several top rivals appeared to be using this race as a testing ground for new chassis ideas – how else to judge so many stars so far off-base, particularly Kevin Harvick? – Childers and Reutimann don't have that luxury. They've got to run strong the next seven weeks to make the chase.
  
  

  Rodney Childers (L) is one of the unsung stars in the NASCAR garage, but with a shot at the playoffs now in his sights, David Reutimann's crew chief may be a lot more high-profile (Photo: Toyota Motorsports)
  

   "We had a good car right off the truck, and really we just tried not to do anything during practice that would get us off- base," Childers said.
   "We knew the track would come to us at night. It did the same thing at Charlotte (where they ran a good fifth).
    "We stuck with what our gut thought. We never touched the track bar or the jack bolts."
    Still, on such fast, slick asphalt (tire temps ran 250 degrees), "you've just got to have track position," Childers says.
   And pit road for Reutimann was a problem: "We struggled a little bit...Our jackman had a little tumble on his bike, had a concussion, had to have some guy fill in," Childers said.
   "Anytime you have one person change, it gets everything off-kilter."
   Then at the end, and when it was all over, things got pretty emotional for both men.
   In part that's because their only other tour win came in that rain-shortened 600 at Charlotte last year, a win they both felt carried an asterisk because of that rain.
   "Ever since then, I wanted to win one for him and do it right," Childers said.
   That he certainly did.
 
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   David Reutimann gets congrats from NASCAR's Mike Helton in victory lane (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)