Chad Finchum has his sights set on bigger and better things in 2015 as he gets set to start the season in Saturday’s season opening race at Kingsport Speedway in Tennessee.

Finchum, 20, from Knoxvill, Tennessee, is scaling back on the number of Late Model Stock Car races he’s running after competing full-time at Kingsport Speedway and Virginia’s Lonesome Pine Raceway, where he won the championship, last season.  The goal for Finchum is to move up into the major leagues of NASCAR racing.

“We ran 37 races last year and won 19 of them,” Finchum said.  “We look at how much time we spent traveling and we’ve done some figuring that, if we cut our Late Model program back, we can put some of that money towards running in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series or NASCAR XFINITY Series.”

Finchum plans to run Saturday’s season opening race at Kingsport Speedway as well as the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown at South Boston Speedway, a track he’s never been to, on April 23rd.  He will also run some races at Motor Mile Speedway but his focus is on getting in some good equipment to race in NASCAR.

“We’ll see how the season goes,” Finchum said of his 2015 plans.  “We may get in and find out we don’t have enough money to play with the big boys and stick with our Late Model and, if we do that, we’ll run there.  As of now, we’re running this one and playing the rest of the season by ear.”

Finchum has scored 16 wins at Kingsport Speedway over the last two seasons and expects his 17th Kingsport Speedway feature victory to come on Saturday.

“Last year, we had a better season in my opinion than 2013 just for the fact that we won 10 wins or something like that and the season before was six,” Finchum remarked.  “I feel very confident.  We’ve had the same crew since I’ve been in Late Models in 2010.  Each year, it’s getting easier as in Crew-Chief bonding, feedback is getting better, the whole team is meshing and it’s easier to work with each other and that’s the key.  I look to go Saturday and win the race.  I feel like we’ve proven we can win there.

“I do envision that we will have a winning car.  There may be circumstances that get in the way but, going into the race, I have a very strong feeling that we will win.  The car will be there.”

Finchum is a confirmed entrant in the invitation-only Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown.