DAYTONA BEACH, FL :: Tennessee’s teenage NASCAR Whelen All-American Series state champion is expanding his racing boundaries this year. His 2014 campaign begins in just a few weeks.
Chad Finchum, 19, of Knoxville, Tenn., won his 2013 state title and NASCAR Late Model track championship at Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway.
He plans to compete in all seven NASCAR Super Late Model race nights scheduled during the 48th annual World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway Feb. 14-22.
Finchum picked up a Super Late Model ride with Tony Ponkauskas of Maryville, Tenn., for next month’s Florida events. New Smyrna Speedway is a half-mile high-banked asphalt oval compared to Kingsport’s .375-mile banked concrete oval where Finchum drives a Late Model Stock Car. Besides the differences in car-types and tracks, Finchum has never faced a schedule of seven feature events in nine days.
“We’re going to New Smyrna to gain experience, knowledge, pick up some points and get a different perspective on racing,” Finchum said. “We’re going to race a different type of car against different racers at a different track with different officials. It’ll help my learning curve and hopefully we can find some things we can apply to our own racing.”
Finchum won his 2013 championships with a record of six wins, 15 top-fives and 20 top-10s in 21 starts. In addition to the track and state titles, he earned a ninth-place finish in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Top 500. Virginia’s Lee Pulliam was the national champion.
Competition aside, December’s NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Awards Event in Charlotte was eye-opening for Finchum.
“Everything NASCAR did for their champions in Charlotte was phenomenal,” Finchum said. “After all that, I told the team I want to try to be where Lee Pulliam was sitting. We want to shoot for the national championship.
“We want to run all the races we can wherever we can. We’ll probably be at Kingsport on Friday nights, but we’re going to travel more. We’d like to run some races at Motor Mile (Speedway in Radford, Va.) Southern National (Motorsports Park in Kenly, N.C.), Hickory (Motor Speedway in N.C.), and South Boston (Speedway in Va.) I’ve been looking at track schedules on their websites.”
“Racing with NASCAR gets you so much publicity, and that’s exactly what we needed for name recognition,” Finchum said. “The Knoxville News-Sentinel and two TV stations did stories on us. We couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Finchum said his level-headed success in the caldron of competition at Kingsport is thanks to his crew members.
“We’ve been together since 2010,” Finchum said of his team. “We have the same people we started with. We all grew together as one. The longer we worked together the more it became like one family.
“My mom and dad (James and Linda Finchum) have been my biggest supporters in racing and in life.”
Crew chief for the team is Patrick “Dinky” Torbett, who was honored at the postseason awards even in Charlotte with the 2013 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series UNOH Ultimate Mechanic Challenge Award. James “J.E.” Blankenship is car chief and other team members include Tony Cordell, Tyler Reed, Eric Romines, David Couch and Sam Couch. James Finchum is car owner. Sponsors include the driver’s employer, A-1 Finchum Heating/Cooling, Texas Roadhouse and Finchum Paint & Body.
It was Torbett who suggested the Finchum team compete in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series last year. A graduate of the same east Tennessee go-kart circuit and short tracks that spawned 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne of Knoxville, Finchum moved into Limited Sportsman cars in 2010 and graduated to Late Models in 2012. He’s also made nine NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts since 2011.
