Finchum Breaks Into National Top 10

DAYTONA BEACH, FL :: Chad Finchum is making a name for himself only months into his first full-time NASCAR racing season at Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway. He’s ranked as the No. 8 driver in the nation just 18 races into his NASCAR Whelen All-American Series career.

Finchum, 18, of Knoxville, Tenn., also leads the NASCAR Late Model division points standings at Kingsport as well as the state point race. He was inactive this past weekend due to a rainout.

NATIONAL TOP 500 STANDINGS |  TOP 20 STATE/PROVINCE STANDINGS

Finchum and his family team prepared meticulously for this season. Their goals are to be successful and build some name recognition in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series.

“We looked at what Nate Monteith did at Kingsport being a two-time track and state champion and the recognition he got. We looked at the exposure Lee Pulliam got as national champion last year,” Finchum said.

“The NASCAR Whelen All-American Series is the first rung. It’s definitely the best route for us, and it’s fun. It’s as fun as it can be.”

Finchum likes racing on Kingsport’s challenging .375-mile banked concrete oval known as “The Concrete Jungle.” The speedway attracts a solid contingent of hard core race car drivers.

“I look at the competition and I see the experience I’m getting,” Finchum said. “In every race I learn something from someone.”

Finchum’s record for the season stands at three wins, nine top fives and 15 top 10s in 18 starts.

“I was in shock after I won the opening night feature at Kingsport,” Finchum said. “I worked hard in practice. A lot of guys don’t like the tight racing there. That’s the way it is at Kingsport. First through seventh place are usually running bumper-to-bumper.”

He also made four starts of Motor Mile this year that produced a best finish of eighth.

“Our results at Motor Mile don’t show how well we’ve been running there,” Finchum said. Mechanical gremlins and an incident prevented solid finishes.

Finchum began his career in go-karts at age six. Eventually he was a regular at Dumplin Valley Raceway, a red clay dirt track for go-karts in Kodak, Tenn. He pitted alongside 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne. They were separated by karting age groups and didn’t race on the track against each other. Finchum worked his way through Bandoleros and Legends cars, winning championships along the way. He moved up to a full size Limited Sportsman car and raced at Newport (Tenn.) Speedway, a .4-mile high banked asphalt oval and got his first win in 2010. He moved to Late Models and won nine times there last year.

The Finchum team did some exploratory racing with NASCAR prior to this year to get a feel for the sanctioning body’s structure on the competition side. Finchum entered the Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 300 for NASCAR Late Models at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in 2011 and 2012. He didn’t make the field for the fall classic on his first attempt. Last October he raced his way into the main event and started and finished 27th. He was running in the top-10 during the final third of the race when a shove sent him into the wall. He also made Late Model starts at Greenville Pickens and Hickory. Finchum made 11 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts 2011-13 with two different teams. He had a best finish of seventh, which he did three times.

The driver’s father James Finchum fields their NASCAR Late Model. They switched to a new Hedgecock chassis early in the season. His first win of the season at Kingsport in March was just its third race. Their older Leavitt chassis is their back-up car. Dinky Torbett is crew chief and James “J.E” Blankenship is the car chief. Crew members include Tyler Reed, Eric Romines, David Couch and Sam Couch. The car is sponsored by A-1 Finchum Heating/Cooling, Texas Roadhouse, and Finchum Paint & Body.

“We’re a family driven race team,” the driver said. “We work out of a one-bay garage at my dad’s heating and air conditioning company. We don’t have a surface plate. We don’t have anything fancy.

“Back in 2007 when I moved from karts to Bandoleros, I went from running at the front to running at the back. I didn’t think we were going to win. My dad told me he knew I was struggling, but he said you have to race with the best to be the best. The next year I won eight of 10 races and the championship. That taught me to never give up.”

National Points Update:
Lee Pulliam took an eight point lead this week after being tied at 728 points with Deac McCaskill atop the national point race a week ago. Pulliam posted his 10th South Boston (Va.) Speedway NASCAR Late Model win of the season in a 200-lap feature July 4. McCaskill struggled during the event and finished 10th in the 19-car field. Pulliam now leads McCaskill 742-734.

Pulliam’s racing record to date includes 16 wins, 26 top fives and 27 top 10s in 29 starts. McCaskill’s 26-race record is 10 wins, 20 top fives and 25 top 10s.

Neither driver won when the head-to-head battle carried over to twin 100s Saturday night at Southern National Motorsports Park in Kenly, N.C. Pulliam posted finishes of seventh and third to McCaskill’s third and fourth, respectively. Tommy Lemons Jr. and Justin Snow won the events. The starting fields were 21 cars for the first 100 and 20 for the second. Lemons was runner-up to Snow in the second 100 lapper and his results helped move him from fourth to third in the national standings this week. Lemons also posted a fourth-place finish in an event won by B.J. Mackey at Caraway Speedway near Asheboro, N.C., on Friday. Pulliam was runner-up in that event.

NASCAR SK Modified driver Keith Rocco dropped from third to fourth in standings this week with an 11th-place finish at Stafford (Conn.) Motor Speedway on Friday and a runner up finish to Tyler Chadwick at Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl on Saturday. Ryan Preece advanced from sixth to fifth in national standings thanks to wins in the NASCAR SK Modified feature at Stafford on Friday as well as the NASCAR Modified feature at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway on Saturday.

C.E. Falk III fell from fifth to sixth in the national point race with a single holiday weekend start. He was runner-up to Greg Edwards at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va., Friday. Completing the top 10 in national points are Anthony Anders (Greenville (S.C.) Pickens Speedway, Kingsport, Hickory (N.C.) Speedway, Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway and Southern National), Finchum (Kingsport and Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, Va.), Brandon Dean (Southern National, Hickory, Caraway and Motor Mile), and Burt Myers (Bowman Gray Stadium, Winston-Salem, N.C.).

Now in its 32nd season, the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series is NASCAR’s national championship program for weekly short track auto racing. There are 55 sanctioned tracks throughout the United States and Canada that participate.

A NASCAR Division I driver’s best 18 results through the Sept. 15 closing date count toward their state and national point totals and the champions are decided on overall point total. Once a driver reaches 18 starts, their point total increases incrementally as they replace some poorer runs with better results.

Under the point structure for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, a race winner receives two points for every car in the event up to 20 cars. Second place receives two fewer points and so on through the field. Race winners receive an additional five points. For example, if 20 cars are in the field, the winner receives 45 points, second place 38 and third 36. If there are 15 cars, the winner receives 35 points, second 28 and third, 26.

Track operators also designate support classes as NASCAR Divisions II-V and drivers in those divisions compete for points in the NASCAR Finalist program. The program brings added recognition to support division drivers. Points are kept separately for asphalt and dirt tracks.

National Top 500 (via NASCAR Home Tracks)