Bad weather helps Reutimann win the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600

Buzzie Reutimann clutched a lug nut in his right hand, tightly so it didn’t fall out.

The rain over Lowe’s Motor Speedway had started right when he picked it up. Under the caution that rain caused, the cars running first through 13th pitted. That left Buzzie’s son, David, in the lead. Then NASCAR red-flagged the race.

The cars sat in running order on pit road, covered in plastic, as the rain thickened and retreated intermittently. A superstitious Florida short-track racer, Buzzie thought maybe holding onto that lug nut would help the rain stay. If NASCAR called the race without restarting, his 39-year-old kid would win his first race.

Two hours, three minutes and 44 seconds later, NASCAR ended the Coca-Cola 600. David Reutimann won his first Cup race, a rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 on Monday evening without leading a single green-flag lap.

“It’s been a long road,” Buzzie Reutimann said after the race, no longer clutching that lug nut. “It’s taken us a long time to get here. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up in the morning and find out I’m dreaming all of this.”

It was the first win ever for 3-year-old Michael Waltrip Racing. Ryan Newman finished second and Robby Gordon was third.

NASCAR’s longest scheduled race went only 227 laps (340.5 miles) before officials ended it, expecting constant rain throughout the night.

Rain had already postponed the Coca-Cola 600 from Sunday to Monday, and dark clouds blanketed Lowe’s Motor Speedway early Monday.

On Lap 8, rain returned, and again on Lap 72. At 3 p.m., after Lap 164, NASCAR red-flagged the race for a Memorial Day salute. When the race restarted, it continued past the halfway point, which made it official. If it started raining again, NASCAR could call the race final whenever it chose.

Kyle Busch had the best car of the day. His No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led 173 of the 227 laps the cars ran. The final rain caution came out on Lap 222 with Busch in the lead as Kasey Kahne closed in on him.

But Busch pitted and gave up the lead.

“We knew it was coming, we knew it was here,” Busch said of the rain. “But we weren’t going to be able to ride around under caution for more than five laps. That was all we had of fuel left. We had to come down and put gas in it.”

Kahne, Brian Vickers, Juan Pablo Montoya, Carl Edwards and Joey Logano all pitted from the front of the field as well. Staying out would have meant risking losing too many places if the race restarted.

Just five years ago, Reutimann was working in Joe Nemechek’s fabrication shop with Cup racing a distant dream. Three years into his Cup career, he has been running so well Waltrip gave him a nickname, having “the franchise” written on Reutimann’s car.

“We took that off his car because I think it went to his head a little bit,” Waltrip said. “He started running into stuff. . . . Now he won, so we’re not going to put it back on there. But, you know, he has been, and in my opinion will always be, the cornerstone of MWR.”

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tganguli@orlandosentinel.com