Latitude 43 owner Bill Jenkins happy with progress, says team will race rest of season
Latitude 43 Motorsports owner Bill Jenkins talks with driver David Stremme before Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
LOUDON, N.H. – Bill Jenkins, the owner of Latitude 43 Motorsports, says that he’s happy with the team’s progress this year and has enough sponsorship to run full events the rest of the 2010 season.
Jenkins, a Massachusetts businessman involved in selling environmental friendly soaps and cleaners, bought the No. 26 team (points and some equipment) from Roush Fenway Racing before the season started. NASCAR allowed a rare sell of points because it was forcing Roush Fenway to cut from five teams to the recently implemented four-team cap.
The organization had Boris Said in the car for the first four races, and David Stremme has driven the remainder of the races with the exception of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway, where Said was back behind the wheel.
The team is 36th in owner points after Stremme’s 31st-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“This is a competitive game,” Jenkins said Sunday morning at New Hampshire. “You want to win. But as an owner, we have made progress since day one. We have made improvements every week. As long as we continue to make improvements, I’m a happy guy.
“In this sport, you’ve got to be a bit of a realist. … I know how to build a business and have had a fortunate career in dealing with these kind of problems in the past in corporate management.”
There were several questions about the team when it started and whether it would even make it 16 races into the season.
“We’ve come a long way, but that’s what this team is about,” Jenkins said. “Everybody here understands our mission and we just stay focused on getting the job done. We’re probably the tiniest team at our level.
“We didn’t even talk about [those rumors]. Rumors are rumors. We knew what we were doing. We just kept our head down and kept digging. We knew what we had to get accomplished.”
Jenkins, whose home sits on latitude 43, has sponsorship from Air National Guard (a sponsorship that Jenkins called “humbling”) and GlobeTrack Wireless GPS. The team fell outside the top 35 after not running full races early in the year.
“Time worked really against us because we didn’t get authorization and close the deal until December 17th last year,” Jenkins said. “It was a real short time frame to put everything together and get ready for Daytona.
“That affected us from a sponsorship standpoint. You can’t negotiate with sponsors until you own the team. That really put us behind the 8-ball. But we’ve been fortunate. We’ve been able to stick at it and we’re growing every week.”
For Jenkins, this is his first foray into NASCAR.
“Since I was a kid, I was a NASCAR and race fan in general,” Jenkins said. “Sometimes opportunities present [themselves] in life and you make decisions because the opportunities are there. I have full permission from my wife.”
Jenkins said the key to his team has been having an experienced crew chief in Frank Stoddard. He also has been pleased with Stremme, who has driven Cup cars for Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing.
“David is an incredible young man,” Jenkins said. “He works so hard. He has the natural talent.”
