Waltrip Craftsman Truck Team - Fast Floridians

Now, about those other members of the firm and Reutimann's explanation of how their paths crossed at this point.

"I really knew zero about [crewchief] Jason Overstreet," says Reutimann. "I know I saw him when he worked with Robert Hamke. I always remembered that when it was time to roll things into the trailer at the end of the night, he was probably the dirtiest guy in the pit area. It was from working so hard from the time he got there to the time he left.

"I never really knew what happened to him. Sometimes I would see him when the Busch Series was in companion with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It looked like he was definitely on his way up the ladder. I didn't know much about him and I didn't even know that he was from Florida. When I came on board at Darrell Waltrip Motorsports, team manager Bobby Kennedy told me a lot about Jason. I didn't realize that our backgrounds were somewhat similar.

"I knew that Bobby was Michael Waltrip's crewchief for his Busch Series entry. I knew that they ran really well together, but other than that, I didn't know much about Bobby, either. When I was planning to run for NEMCO and all of a sudden it fell apart, Brian [Pattie] was looking out for me again like he always has, and he went to Bobby.

"Brian knew Bobby and really respected his work. He knew he was a good guy to work with and he knew that he was going to put together a new team. Pattie laid the groundwork and told Bobby there might be a possibility that I would be available. Evidently, Bobby saw me run enough and was willing to give me a chance. He held off hiring a driver, and there were pretty good guys on that list."

Brian Pattie is perhaps the thread that connects this entire story. "Brian Pattie and I are from the same hometown," continues Reutimann. "Brian and one of my cousins were friends, and my cousin just brought him out to the shop one day. Brian would hang out after school, kind of goofing around. He would help me wash the cars and stuff. Eventually, he started going to the races with us, and before I knew it, my dad was showing him how to do things.

"Then he was working on the car and doing setups for me. Brian's like a sponge and absorbed a lot of information growing up. He gained an unbelievable amount of knowledge in a short amount of time. Eventually, he became my crewchief, and we were just a bunch of young kids traveling all over the place to dirt and pavement races. We were the youngest guys in the field with the youngest crew. I was the only one that had a driver's license by then.

"When Brian first came to the shop, he talked about how he was going to be an accountant because he had a head for numbers, and he said that we worked way too hard. Basically, Brian grew up at our shop, and it didn't take long for us to corrupt him and convert him to a racer. He came from school and he would come over and stay there with me until midnight working. Then he would get up and go to school and do it again the next night."