In 2009, David Stremme was the driver of the #12 Penske Dodge Getty Images/Sam Greenwood
While the #12 Dodge, owned by Roger Penske will be back in 2010, David Stremme will not be driving it, and if he cannot find a Cup ride with a lower tier team Stremme likely will not be in the Cup series in 2010. It seems a full time return to the Nationwide Series team, or a full time truck ride would be more beneficial to Stremme's career at this point.
That might sound a little harsh but Stremme has now had three full seasons in the Cup series, and he has yet to record a top five finish, and he has just 3 top 10 finishes. Stremme is the classic example of guys promoted to the Cup series, while there were many rides available. Now that the NASCAR economy has soured somewhat, guys like Stremme are going to have a hard time staying a part of this series.
Stremme’s 2009 stats confirm this. He had no top 10 finishes, an average start of 24.7 and an average finish of 25th. Along the way earning some four million dollars, however this is a performance business and Stremme has just not had the performance at the Cup level. Given how poorly he ran, team owner Roger Penske seems justified in replacing Stremme for the final three races of 2009 to get Brad Keselowski a head start on 2010.
While he has not won a Nationwide series race he does have 49 top ten finishes in 133 career starts. That stat seems to suggest that Stremme was still growing as a driver when the economic boom in NASCAR at the beginning and middle parts of this decade allowed him to jump to the Cup series prematurely.
In 2008 Stremme ran the entire Nationwide schedule for Rusty Wallace and had 16 top 10 finishes, and based on that performance was given another shot at the Cup series with Penske this year. Now it seems Stremme will have to do that again.
The economic hardship faced by NASCAR has shrunk the garage, and the number of teams competing in the Cup series. Marginal Cup talents like David Stremme have been deleted from the Cup garage but still hold value to Nationwide and Truck series teams.
Comments
Stremme might be better off for now in a Nationwide car, but let's be clear: Keselowski, who is obviously a talented driver, looked even worse than Stremme in the 12 car.
I think we're going to learn very soon that Stremme was not the problem, although the addition of Jay Guy may help out a bit.
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