Meet David Reutimann, the surprise winner Saturday night at Chicagoland!

photo credit: John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR

Reutimann led 52 laps during Saturday night’s Lifelock.com 400 including the final 31 after passing Jeff Gordon for the position. Over the final 10 laps, Reutimann had to hold off a fast charging Carl Edwards to cruise to Victory Lane.

“We had a really good car from the time we unloaded,” Reutimann said. “The worst, we got really free that last run. The 99 (Carl Edwards) started gaining on us. We kept pedalling. Thankfully he didn’t have enough time to get to us.”

This is the second win for Reutimann in 118 Sprint Cup Series races. His first cup win came at Charlotte after a rain shortened 2009 Coca-Cola 600.

“I felt like there was a cloud over it (the 600 win), no pun intended, but a dark cloud hanging over our head with that win at the 600,” Reutimann said. “Everybody just says, Yeah, you guys won, but. Rodney Childers (crew chief) won me that race. He made the right calls. He won me the race tonight. We win and lose as a team. Now I’m just wondering like, Okay, here you go, just leave me alone. We won the race. We did a good job. Everybody did a good job. Everybody around me worked together to get us where we are.”

The Margin of Victory? Reutimann beat Carl Edwards to the finish line by 0.727 seconds.

“It’s second, you know what I mean. It’s okay, but it’s not winning,” Edwards said. “But the good thing is that we had the fastest car at the end of the race. If you have the fastest car at the end of the race every week, you’ll win plenty of races. If we can just do this more often, we will have turned the page and we got a lot of good things to look forward to. Hopefully we can go back, look at what we did tonight and apply it for the races to come.”

“Man, just kept getting bigger in the windshield and I didn’t have enough laps. I was trying so hard to catch him. I want to say a special congratulations to David. He is a class act, a really great guy. You guys know that. It’s cool to see how happy he is.”

Jeff Gordon was out in front for 47 laps and looked strong throughout the night, but once again couldn’t get to victory lane.

“We just fought between loose and tight all night long,” Gordon explained. “Early in the race, we were just real loose on throttle on the exit. We tightened the car up. Didn’t really help the exit. Seemed to tighten it up everywhere else where it was at least drivable. When that top groove came in, that worked pretty good for me. There at the end, that top groove just wasn’t working for me. I had to run around the bottom. Then we got loose everywhere. The last run, Carl was saying the same thing. They got loose, too. I don’t know if the track loosened up, what it was. Everybody seemed like they were really fighting loose at the end.”

Gordon’s winless streak has now extended to 48 races, the longest of his career. However, Gordon is currently second in the point standings. A great position to be in with six more races remaining until The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup begins.

Jimmie Johnson shot out of the gate strong and lead the first 92 laps, the most among all of the night’s leaders. Several mishaps set Johnson back to finish 25th, one lap down. First, Johnson missed the entrance to pit road during a green-flag pit stop on lap 93 and then he spun on the backstretch on lap 136 after racing close to Martin Truex Jr. The trouble wasn’t over for the driver of the #48 after a flat right front tire sent him down pit road on lap 169, trapping him two laps down at that point. “I felt like we could still salvage a top five or something and I cut a right front tire down and then just got in the wall,” Johnson said. “Between sliding through the grass and touching the wall, it messed up the body and the nose started dragging pretty bad there for the final run or two.”

Points leader Kevin Harvick suffered engine problems throughout the entire night which had him in the garage for repairs. Harvick struggled to complete 251 of 267 laps. Regardless of his 34th-place finish, Harvick maintains the lead in the standings by 103 points over Jeff Gordon.

Clint Bowyer finished fourth followed by the polesitter Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Paul Menard rounded out the top-10.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were 4 cautions for 21 laps and 10 lead changes among 7 drivers: J. McMurray 0; J. Johnson 1-92; J. McMurray 93-164; J. Gordon 165-200; D. Reutimann 201; J. Gordon 202-212; D. Reutimann 213-231; C. Bowyer 232; C. Edwards 233-234; J. Montoya 235; D. Reutimann 236-267

The Sprint Cup Series will enjoy an off-week before heading to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, July 25th.