A Family Affair

David Stremme, like many drivers, including those he races against in NASCAR Sprint Cup competition, grew up around short tracks. But, unlike many kids whose parents busily take care of the race car then watch them drive it, Stremme—as a pre-teen—did much of the work on the family’s race cars then watched his parents, Cindy and Lou, race them to victory lane. We asked him to tell the story.

The rest of the family didn’t want my dad to go racing.  Jim Stremme, my great uncle, was racing in Michigan and hit the wall.  He died in a race car.  But, safety had evolved, so my dad started racing in 1982. I was five years old. My mom started running powderpuff races a year after that.  Later on, my mother’s father, Lowell Lidecker Jr., went racing for three years. In 1988, he was the oldest Rookie of the Year in South Bend (Ind.)  Motor Speedway’s history.  My grandmother, Marilyn Lidecker, would watch my brother Bobby and me in the stands while my parents were racing.

    I don’t get nervous watching my mom and dad go around the track. I grew up doing that, so it’s normal to me. I’ve seen them both in real bad wrecks. They’ve always had really safe cars. I know it’s dangerous, but I don’t get scared.My dad is more technical, but he’s not as smooth of a driver. My mom is really smooth driving, but she’s not technical. Nowadays, she might only run eight times all year and when she does, it’s near our South Bend, Indiana home at Plymouth Speedway or at M-40 in Michigan.

    My mom goes real good and has won five track championships. The first year I raced against her, she whipped my butt. People gave me a bad time. I said, “She’s good. She’s good enough to beat everybody else, too.” She whipped everybody’s butt.Truth is, mom’s got the bad temper of all of us. She took no bull. A lot of people gave her that because she’s female, but she’d go out there and get it done. 

   People didn’t like her beating them, but she would. And, that was cool. Today, I’m supportive of women racing. If they can do it, they can do it. That’s probably because while I was growing up, I didn’t know any difference between a female and a male racer.We always had lots of good help from friends to go racing, but I also remember many nights during the week when my dad and me would get the cars ready.

   I was working regularly in the shop from when I was 10 or 11 years old and by the time I was 12, I took care of my mom’s race car, took care of my dad’s race car. It’s what I did through middle school and high school. I really knew those race cars. I tried working a regular job at a machine shop while I was in high school. I worked for about three days and said, “I’m done. I’m going back to work on the race cars.”

   My mom and dad had normal jobs. Mom drove a school bus, actually she still drives a school bus, and my dad drove a truck, but he’s retired now. As we raced during the summer, I’d take care of their cars while they worked and it allowed them to relax during the evening.My younger brother Bobby started racing mini stock cars when he was 17 years old. He won a race and rookie of the year. Since then, he’s won champion-ships and races in ASA. He’s really good.

   I don’t know how many championships my family has won in northern Indiana and lower Michigan. Some people really disliked us because we had a lot of success. It wasn’t because we were cheaters; we worked hard on our stuff. I think that’s why we were successful. A lot of times we didn’t have the best equipment, but it was well maintained and ready. It was never like we weren’t going to buy food in order to go racing. Racing was always second.My dad still races. 

   I just built him a brand new car here in my North Carolina shop. It’s a really cool piece because it’s way different than other cars. It’s a Hamke Chassis, that’s all I use. Providing these cars is a way for me to give back to my mom and dad since they always did stuff for me. Before, they were paying for the cars and I took care of them, but now I buy the cars. We would always start on the cars in October and go right up until the race season begins at the end of April. We’d build two or three cars over the winter.

   My parents never pushed me into driving. When I was 15, it was raining and they needed people to dry the track. My dad said go on out there. I wasn’t scared; I just wanted to go faster. It was like I went into a whole other world. I still feel like that: When I’m in the car, that’s my place.I ended up racing a couple times that year. I finished third in my first race and won the second time out. That’s when the complaints started.

   There weren’t younger people racing then. The youngest were 18 or 20, so they made me wait until I had my license before I raced again. I won a bunch of races once I was old enough.

   From there I moved to ASA and where I am now in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. My mom doesn’t get nervous watching me race at all. My dad gets nervous when we’re running the big tracks like Daytona and Talladega.  He doesn’t like it. Everywhere else we can talk about stuff, like how we race. Or, how people race me. Some of these guys are rough. I was brought up to race with no mirrors, no radios, nothing like that. And, we didn’t have a lot of money, so you have to respect your equipment. Some of these guys don’t do that and we talk about that.

   Both my parents understand what happens on the track. There’ve been parts of this season that have been pretty hard. After the spring race at Richmond, Sunday came around and I didn’t want to talk with anybody. I was mad. They knew why I was mad. They’d be mad, too.

   Another thing that’s cool is when I talk to them, we’ll talk about how I’m racing and they understand it better than most parents. My dad might see something and say, “You need to calm down a little bit” or he might say, “You need to do this because I can see what you’re doing.” It’s cool because they can see what’s going on from the driver’s side of things.