CONCORD, N.C. -- David Stremme doesn't care what the car he drives in this year's Daytona 500 has on its hood.

Whatever it is -- even if it's nothing but the bare No. 12 -- at least he'll be driving something. Last year, after two seasons with not much success as a full-time Cup driver at Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates, Stremme was out of a ride for NASCAR's biggest race.

“

David brought some experience to the table that actually forwarded our test program a bit.

”

ROY McCAULEY, 12 crew chief

Now he not only has one, but he'll be driving the No. 12 Dodge that Ryan Newman drove to Victory Lane a year ago. That's hard to believe for a guy who spent most of last season as a Cup test driver for Penske Racing while also driving for owner Rusty Wallace on the Nationwide side.

"To test for them and then to have the opportunity to drive the 12, I wouldn't have thought that would happen back in June," said Stremme, 31. "But now I'm looking to go to Daytona and make a statement."

Newman left Penske Racing at the end of last season to join the newly formed Stewart-Haas Racing organization. He will drive the No. 39 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas this season.

Newman's departure after nine seasons at Penske left the opening that Stremme eventually was pegged to fill. Crew chief Roy McCauley said that it was Stremme's willingness to take the usually thankless job of test driver without complaint -- and then use it to give back valuable information to the Penske organization -- that led to the driver's promotion.

"The thing that was neat about David being our test driver was that he had some Cup experience," McCauley said. "With most of your test drivers, you're like, 'Hey, kid, go run us 1,000 laps at Greenville and give us some brake data.' David brought some experience to the table that actually forwarded our test program a bit.

"He's had 75 Cup starts. He would be at a test and would be more like, 'You know guys, I think this would be better in these conditions or those conditions. Or this would work better in the draft than in single-car. Or this would work better at Martinsville than at Richmond.' That's what he brought to the test program, whereas if you had a younger driver, he's not going to be able to bring that to you from a test standpoint. That really helped us quite a bit, I think.

Stremme's two Cup seasons with Ganassi were disappointing, perhaps especially so to the driver himself. He registered a total of only three top-10 finishes -- and when he led two laps in his only start of the Cup season at Talladega last season, it matched his total laps led for the entire Cup season he ran a year earlier.

But that was then. This is now. (Continued)