A long, inactive year of driving has turned into back-to-back rides for Victoria’s Josh Reaume.
Reaume, 26, will get behind the wheel for tonight’s Drivin’ for Linemen 200 race in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois. It comes after he earned his first ride of
the season in last week’s WinStarOnlineGaming.com 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.
A blown engine took Reaume out of that race just 12 laps in.
“It was just unfortunate. We blew up the motor and that happens sometimes,” Reaume said over the phone.
“We’ve got a brand new, fresh, rebuilt engine in the truck this weekend and I’m hoping to redeem myself. Last week was a bit of a letdown because you get all excited about finally going racing for the season — and we blow up.”
But, as they say, that’s racing.
Starting in the field of 28, Reaume’s opening ride ended in a 26th-place finish in his MSG
No. 50 Chevrolet Silverado.
“Next week is Iowa and I’m not really sure what’s going to happen there. The way your job works as a driver, you have to take care of your equipment. But, at the same time, you have to race hard enough to look good so that you can sell sponsorship,” Reaume said. “If I go to Gateway and crash the truck, I’m probably not going to be in it in Iowa. If we go and have a good result, then there’s a good chance I’ll get another shot at it.”
Such is life for the former Western Speedway driver, who began racing karts at age six. He went on to earn a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Victoria. He works for MBM Racing in the Xfinity series.
“It was pretty impressive for a small operation,” he said of his engineering stint last season.
“I was the only engineer and we didn’t have a lot of people. That was good for me from a driving standpoint, because it kind of reset the cards for me a little bit in the sense that people look at you and say you’ve been associated with success and been a part of that, so you must have some ability and knowledge, outside of driving a car, that you can bring to the table.”
Reaume also has driven in that series — in fact, more than in trucks, where he has competed in just three races.
“They’re kind of like driving a brick, to be honest. The motors are pretty well the same as the Xfinity cars, but the trucks are a lot taller so you’re pushing a lot of air through the wind,” Reaume said. “They feel a little sluggish. If you get out of shape and you have to get off the gas, it costs you a lot more because you’re pushing so much air. It takes you a lot longer to get back up to speed again.”
The trucks can reach upward of 320 kilometres per hour.
“In an Xfinity car, to go fast, you have to be on the edge and drive the wheels off it to go fast. In a truck you have to be on the edge, But you have to be smooth because, if you go over the edge, the time you lose is a lot more than you would lose in an Xfinity car,” he said.
Reaume will be at a disadvantage today in that he has never raced at Gateway before.
“It’s a smaller track, not as much banking and it’s shaped like a pear, so in one end you have tight turns with a lot of banking. The other end is the flat, wide sweeping corner, similar to Western Speedway, so maybe all my races there will play to my favour in turns three and four.”
Practice starts this morning, with qualifying set for 2:45 p.m. PDT, followed by the race three hours later.
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