{"id":944,"date":"2010-08-10T15:10:14","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T19:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/?p=944"},"modified":"2010-08-10T15:10:14","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T19:10:14","slug":"stremme-leaves-26-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/2010\/08\/10\/stremme-leaves-26-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Stremme leaves #26 team"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:right;margin-left:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 0pt none\" src=\"http:\/\/view.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/image\/8796344\/autism-speaks-400-practice\/autism-speaks-400-practice.jpg?size=234&amp;imageId=8796344\" border=\"0\" alt=\"DOVER, DE - MAY 14: David Stremme drives the #26 Air Gaurd Ford during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway on May 14, 2010 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Nick Laham\/Getty Images)\" width=\"234\" height=\"144\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A few weeks ago I figured David Stremme could do anything and still remain a part of the #26 team owned by Bill Jenkins. After all making the field wasn&#8217;t even a given for the team and yet they still ran out there to the track. Turns out it&#8217;s Jenkins who isn&#8217;t paying his drivers and apparently is doing very little to make the team better.<\/p>\n<p>Stremme has left the team with the primarily reason being financial compensation.\u00a0 &#8220;We always had to do more with less, but in the last month and a  half, ownership hasn&#8217;t really wanted to make things better. Bill  Jenkins has not been willing to make the correct decisions, and it has  affected the performance of the team. We&#8217;ve barely been making it to  track the last few weeks. At Pocono, we didn&#8217;t even know if we were  going to have tires to race on. &#8220;I went to Bill and said `If things  aren&#8217;t going to change, I don&#8217;t think I want to stay involved.&#8217; We  discussed a timeline for him to find another driver and agreed that we  would look at things again after Bristol. But he immediately started  calling around trying to replace me. He apparently wanted to find  someone else right now, and that&#8217;s fine. It&#8217;s his choice&#8230;. There are obligations to both me and the  team that have not been met,  and that was a big part of my decision to  leave. I don&#8217;t want to be  involved with something like that. I dealt  with (Jenkins) with respect,  and was straightforward with him at all  times. I didn&#8217;t get that in  return.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 0pt none\" src=\"http:\/\/view1.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/image\/8666793\/nascar-richmond-preview\/nascar-richmond-preview.jpg?size=234&amp;imageId=8666793\" border=\"0\" alt=\"RICHMOND, VA -  APRIL 30: David Stremme, driver of the #26 Air Natioinal Guard Ford,  sits in his car during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series CROWN  ROYAL Presents the Heath Calhoun 400 at Richmond International Raceway  on April 30, 2010 in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty  Images for NASCAR)\" width=\"234\" height=\"332\" \/>Those comments were much in line with what Boris Said spoke of earlier this week.\u00a0 &#8220;There&#8217;s no real polite  way to say this, but Bill Jenkins owes me a bunch of money.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There haven&#8217;t been any mention of who or if the team will attempt to run at Michigan this weekend. Currently the entry list for Michigan has TBA listed for both the #26 and the #13 cars. Casey Mears who will take over the #13 car later this year is listed as the driver for the #36 Tommy Baldwin ride.<\/p>\n<div style=\"float:right;margin-left:5px\"><\/div>\n<p>Stremme should have known it would come to this. After all look at the photo. He&#8217;s still wearing his Penske helmet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago I figured David Stremme could do anything and still remain a part of the #26 team owned by Bill Jenkins. After all making the field wasn&#8217;t even a given for the team and yet they still ran out there to the track. Turns out it&#8217;s Jenkins who isn&#8217;t paying his drivers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[68,188],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"tag-bill-jenkins","8":"tag-david-stremme"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nascar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}