Chase McDermand Working Through First Year Growing Pains as Driver/Owner in Xtreme Outlaw Midgets
Photo by Emily Schwanke
CONCORD, N.C.—If a neon yellow No. 40 is not driving around a race track, Chase McDermand is finding something to turn a wrench around.
In his first year operating a team under his complete ownership in the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota, McDermand has seen both the highs and lows of managing a solo operation.
“(I’m) definitely keeping myself busy,” McDermand said. “It’s definitely been a struggle, with things just not falling our way, but that’s part of racing, and why it’s difficult to compete at a high level on a national tour is that amount of work it takes, plus a little luck doesn’t hurt.
“Racing has a lot of ups and downs, and you got to rebound quickly from those lows because that could make or break your season. So, going out and picking off a second place reminds us that we’re still making progress, and it’s about staying on top of everything to get to the next night.”
The fourth-year veteran from Springfield, IL, embarked on a new journey in 2025 by formally creating Chase McDermand Racing, with his biggest change being a swap of his engine package to a Toyota powerplant inside the No. 40 LynK Chassis. The change served as McDermand’s biggest learning curve, but a massive strength after a full understanding.
“Any time you have a change, any part of your program is going to have a little bit of a learning curve,” McDermand said. “We changed quite a bit at the beginning of the year, and so all of those things add together and slowed us down in terms of learning.
“But, we were able to be really consistent with good finishes up until the last few weeks with top fives, a lot of top 10s, and I feel like we’ve made really good progress. Of course, we’re still not exactly where we want to be, but we’re getting close, and the only way to learn and gain more on it is to just race.”
The driver from the Land of Lincoln began the first 10 races of the Xtreme Outlaw season inside the top-10 at the finish, including two podiums and seven top fives. Those results helped him keep him in the title hunt behind Jacob Denney in second place.
When the weekend in Oklahoma arrived, McDermand got caught up in an accident that relegated him to a 20th-place finish at Arrowhead, then was involved in a last-lap accident with Cannon McIntosh on the opening night of the Federated Auto Parts Ironman 55 that hurt McDermand further in the points by dropping to fifth place in points.
McDermand had to compartmentalize his emotions before the Appalachian Midget Week, which helped him begin a rebound, including three top-10s and a second-place finish in the Friday show at Path Valley Speedway.
“That’s what separates the good drivers from the best drivers is trying to start fresh every night,” McDermand said. “You just got to ride the wave, right? So, mentally resetting from a bad night, it's tough forgetting about (the night before) and going onto the next night.
“It’s not something easy to do, but luckily, I’ve got a good support system around me. We’ve got great partners, family, and friends in general that push us to be our best, and I look forward to making those people happy.”
After spending the week reclaiming forward momentum towards placing higher in the Series points by the finale at Millbridge Speedway, McDermand now looks towards his home state for three of the final four races of the season.
Starting with the Xtreme-POWRi Challenge Series finale weekend, McDermand owns a top-10 at MO’s Doe Run Raceway and an Xtreme Outlaw Feature win in his only start at the “World Famous” Highland Speedway in 2023.
In October, McDermand will look for his first win at home track Jacksonville Speedway in the Honest Abe Roofing Open Wheel Showdown after finishing on the podium twice in 2024 before finishing the 2025 campaign at Millbridge Speedway - where he’s scored top fives through three of his four career Midget starts.
“I’ve spent a lot of time at Jacksonville, it’s really close to us,” McDermand said. “Highland, not so much, I think I only watched one other race there besides (Xtreme, 2023). I have a good sense of what we’ve got to expect with experience, or have had good finishes in the past.
“And, all of these tracks we can go back to where we either have experience, or have good finishes in the past helps the confidence because you have a good notebook to fall back on if things don’t go your way and be able to build on that, whereas maybe somebody struggled and they get behind the eight ball because past performance wasn’t the best. So I always enjoy racing close to home, and we get some local fans that couldn’t travel to the farther ones for sure.”
McDermand climbs back aboard the GR8 Toyota Midget for the final six races of the season, tackling the Xtreme-POWRi Challenge Series finale weekend at Doe Run on Friday, Sept. 5, and Highland on Saturday, Sept. 6.
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online or by downloading the DIRTVision App.
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