JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — Chad McCumbee is highly looking forward to returning to New River All-American Speedway on Saturday night, as he hopes to pick up his second career Solid Rock Carriers CARS Tour win.
McCumbee, 38, picked up his first win in the CARS Tour last March. He finished third when the series ran at New River for the first time one month later. This year, McCumbee’s expectations are higher than usual heading into the Milam Equipment Rental Carolina 125.
“New River is one of my favorite race tracks,” McCumbee said. “Going to a place I like driving at and suits my style, I think there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be relatively competitive.”
McCumbee and the Robert Elliott Racing team have plenty of momentum heading into Saturday night’s race.
McCumbee finished fifth in the most recent CARS Tour race at Wake County Speedway in Raleigh, N.C., and last week, teammate Sam Yarbrough picked up the victory in the Marty Ward Memorial at Florence Motor Speedway in Timmonsville, S.C.
“We had a good event at Wake a couple of weeks ago and thought we had a shot there,” McCumbee continued. “We had a great night at Florence with Sam. Anything can change and the CARS Tour is definitely the most difficult thing going, but we have as much positive momentum going as we’ve had in a while. The race track should fit our package well.”
New River All-American Speedway and Florence Motor Speedway are very similar in one characteristic: Abrasive track surfaces which increase tire degradation at a much quicker rate than most race tracks.
“I think of places we go now, Florence is certainly the closest we can compare [New River] to,” McCumbee stated. “Two totally different driving tracks, but the general thought process of how you race the race track and plan your evening is really close.”
New River is most commonly compared to Myrtle Beach Speedway, another coastal Carolina track with an abrasive track surface and a unique configuration prior to its demise in 2020.
“It’s somewhat like Myrtle Beach was,” McCumbee continued. “Being a smaller track with a dogleg, you really have to drive it in a unique way to save the tires. What you see guys do, with smaller motor packages or different rules is different from what we have to do in the CARS Tour, or even a different series that may come. That’s the cool thing, the race track races differently in every division.”
Chad McCumbee’s racing background is more diverse than many of the drivers in the series.
McCumbee has won in the ARCA Menards Series, on dirt and asphalt, has claimed victory at the Myrtle Beach 400, and has racked up accolades in sports car racing as well. In 2015, McCumbee won an ST division championship in IMSA’s Pilot Challenge series.
His diverse racing career began in Shallotte, N.C.
“I started racing karts when I was 10 years old on dirt oval stuff,” McCumbee recalled. “Started at Shallotte Point Speedway. From go-karts, I moved into the Allison Legacy Series, and then into late model stock cars at Myrtle Beach, before moving into ARCA, and spent a lot of time in Trucks.
“After all that, when I was able to come back and do some more late model racing, I won the Myrtle Beach 400 and have been driving for Ford on the sports car side since 2018.”
Prior to making his NASCAR Cup Series debut in 2007 for Petty Enterprises, McCumbee was most known for his supporting actor role as Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in an ESPN biopic documenting the life of the late, great Dale Earnhardt, Sr. — a seven-time NASCAR champion who was killed in a fatal crash on the last lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18, 2001.
“I got to spend some time with Dale [recently] and he drove one of my Mazdas at Martinsville, and always working on the next thing,” McCumbee stated. “He’s an amazing ambassador for the sport that’s always going to parlay into positives for the sport.”
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who went on to win 26 races in the NASCAR Cup Series, including the Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014, is one of four co-owners of the CARS Tour. The 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion, Kevin Harvick, 21-time NASCAR Cup Series winner Jeff Burton and Trackhouse Racing team owner Justin Marks also co-own the series.
“Dale, Kevin, Jeff, Justin and everybody has done a great job to continue what Jack [McNelly] has built,” McCumbee said. “Jack and Keeley [Dubensky] are still doing an awesome job managing things. That’s why you see the continued growth of it and, what those guys bring moving forward, the sky’s the limit and you’ll continue to see the series grow.”