Chad McCumbee’s California Dreams Don’t Come True.

With little time between Datona and California No. 08 theGPSstore.com / Garmin Chevrolet ready for the next race for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at California Speedway with the running of the San Bernardino County 200.
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Chad McCumbee and Green Light Racing are proud to announce their intentions for chasing the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship during the 2007 season. After a successful rookie season in the #08 Green Light Racing Chevrolet, McCumbee will once again be behind the wheel for the team that finished second in the series’ Rookie of the Year standings in 2006.

"I am really excited about next year," said McCumbee. "It is really nice to know what you are going to be doing next year and to be able to start preparing things for the next racing season even though the 2006 season just ended. I can’t thank Bobby (Dotter) and Gene (Christensen, co-team owners) enough for allowing me the opportunity to live my dream."

McCumbee finished his rookie season in the Craftsman Truck Series with three top-10 finishes and nine top-15 finishes, with a season-best seventh-place result at both Nashville Superspeedway (TN) and Atlanta Motor Speedway (GA). With Green Light Racing in 2007, the 21-year-old now looks forward to the opportunities to build on the success the team found in their first full season together.

"I think that we will be pretty successful next year, and we will definitely be up front competing for some wins. We really want to be able to finish in the top-10 in points and if we bring homes those wins, maybe have a shot at the championship. Those are some of our goals for next year. We will work really hard in the off-season to improve anything that we can and we should be really competitive next year. "

Green Light Racing Owners Bobby Dotter and Gene Christensen are also enthusiastic to have McCumbee coming back on board as the team strives to grow on the success built in the 2006season.

"For not really knowing what to expect when this year started, it was just really a pleasure to work with Chad," said Dotter. "He just performed better than most any driver ever has in our equipment and we are obviously very excited for next year.

"The entire year, Chad never wrecked any of our trucks and there were three of them that he really got to liking. So we still will have those, and we will have some new equipment and should just beable to make improvements on our successes from last year."

"We are definitely excited to have Chad back onboard with us," added Christensen. "Chad really showed his true potential last year. The more hedrives the better that he gets."

The end of the 2006 season is where the team really began to show how far along they had come. They consistently brought home solid finishes and began working toward what they would be able to do in the future.

"The majority of our team is sticking around," added McCumbee. "The success we had this past season has really kept everyone pumped up and it’s a pretty big pat on the back when you can do what we were able to do with a limited budget and all. Now I think everything is put in place for next year for us to have a chance to finish up front."

Sponsorship opportunities for the 2007 season with Chad McCumbee and the #08 Green Light Racing team are still available. For sponsorship information and for more on Chad McCumbee, contact Zach Drager at DSG by calling (704) 455-2051 and be sure to stop by the all new www.chadmccumbee.com

Chad McCumbee wrapped up his rookie season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in style. He put forth a solid qualifying effort and brought home a 13th-place finish in the 2006 Season Finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway (FL).

"It was a really good weekend for our team," said McCumbee. "Everything that we went there to accomplish, we did. We kept myself in the second position in the Rookie of the Year standings. I didn't think we had a shot at getting it, because we didn't run all of the races and of the good competition that we were up against."

McCumbee was able to finish second in the Rookie of the Year standings without even competing in the entire Craftsman Truck Season. He didn't race in the first event at Daytona, so to put up the statistics that he did and to go give the front runner a run for his money was even more impressive.

After putting up some fast times in practice, McCumbee put the #08 TheGPSstore / Garmin Machine in the 22nd starting position for Friday night's event. It didn't take too long for him to move his way up through the field, where he would go on to finish in the 13th position.

"It was a good weekend to cap off the year. It really showed how good of a team we are and how we can really do a lot with a little. I stayed in the 17th position in points, and we were able to move my car owner, Bobby Dotter, up to the top 20 in the owners' points, which is a good feeling going into next year.

"I really look forward to next year with TheGPSstore.com and being again with Green Light racing, and hopefully we can improve just a little bit next year and bring home the first win."

Just because the NASCAR Craftsman Truck race was over on Friday, it didn't mean that McCumbee's weekend of racing was over.

Immediately after the race, Chad flew back to the Charlotte area where he was going to compete in the Myrtle Beach 250 weekend at Myrtle Beach Speedway (SC). It's the place where his racing career was started and the place where he hoped to bring home his next victory. But once he arrived there, his weekend did not go as well as it had started.

He was caught up in a second-lap incident with another driver and the damage to his vehicle was too much to continue for the rest of the event, and he was scored 42nd for the race.

"It wasn't the way that I wanted to end what started out to be such a great weekend," added McCumbee. "The other driver just got in over his head and ran into me and ran me into the wall. The car was so torn up that we couldn't really continue. Hopefully we should be able to get it back together and go race for some fun next year while we go for the 2007 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship."

For more information on Chad McCumbee, contact Zach Drager at DSG by calling (704) 455-2051 and be sure to stop by the all new www.chadmccumbee.com

Green Light Racing rookie Chad McCumbee is ready to end the 2006 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season on top, pushing for his first top-five finish at the Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Despite a mediocre run at Phoenix last weekend, the driver of the No. 08 The GPS Store/Garmin Chevrolet is prepared to end his season on a high note. McCumbee has had two top-fifteen finishes over the past three races, including a 7th place at Atlanta, which tied his career-best finish. Now, with one event remaining, McCumbee is looking to tap into that momentum once more.

Though this will be his first start at Homestead, McCumbee is confident he has what it takes to find success on the 1.5-mile oval. All three of McCumbee's top-ten finishes during the 2006 seasons came on intermediate tracks: Texas, Nashville, and Atlanta. But McCumbee also has sheer determination on his side. At the beginning of the season, he was on a team with no sponsor, little money, and few prospects. Now, with two sponsors and a full 2007 schedule laying ahead, McCumbee wants to prove he's a competitive racer with a bright future.

"I am looking forward to Homestead, we have run very good on the mile and a half tracks and the truck we are running this weekend is the same truck we ran at Atlanta" said McCumbee. Green Light co-owner Bobby Dotter said, "Homestead should be a track that we excel at based on what Chad and the team have done so far this season on similar size tracks, and were excited to end the season on a high note".

McCumbee is currently 17th in overall Truck series driver standings, nine points ahead of 18th place Aric Almirola.

Bud Pole Qualifying for the Ford 200 will begin at 5 p.m. ET on Friday, with the race set to start at 8:15 p.m. ET. Qualifying will be broadcast live on SPEED at 5 p.m. ET, followed by the pre-race show at 7:30 p.m. ET. More information on the Ford 200 and the Ford Championship Weekend can be found online at www.homesteadmiamispeedway.com.

MOORESVILLE, NC (November 7, 2006) -- As the season goes on, the accolades keep piling up for young Chad McCumbee. He headed to Texas Motor Speedway this past weekend fresh off a solid finish at Texas' sister track, Atlanta Motor Speedway. The momentum from his seventh-place finish at Atlanta carried through to Texas, and after wrapping up a 13th-place finish, McCumbee is now ready to carry on that same momentum to Phoenix International Raceway.

"It was a really good run for us," said McCumbee. "Two weeks in a row at the same type of track. We knew that we were going to have pretty strong trucks for both events and we did. We didn"t get the finish we wanted at Texas because we had a brake problem there, but we had a good outing with TheGPSStore.com/Garmin Chevrolet.

"Seventeenth was a little bit better qualifying run than we typically have. It actually had me a little bit worried, because we usually don"t qualify that well and then we run really well in the race. And this weekend we qualified well, and we raced well."

When bad luck strikes and a team can still go on to finish in the top-15, that says a lot about the organization and its team members.

"We had a really tough weekend going through practice and everything. We had a bunch of crazy issues that was really nothing but a bunch of bad luck. We turned it around, and I really felt like we had a top-five truck most of the night, and if that last caution wouldn"t have came out, we easily would have had a top-ten. And if we didn"t have those brake problems, who knows what we could have done."

Next up for McCumbee and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is Phoenix International Raceway. Next weekend"s visit will be the first for the young driver, as he will try and learn his way around the flat track for the first time when he goes there to practice.

"We have struggled at the flatter tracks this year, but I feel like we have really started to find something that I like on that style track the last couple of them that we have been to. We are really headed in the right direction, and we are going to Phoenix with what we think will start out well and finish well. We just have to test a few things the rest of this year and be ready for next year so that we can really be competitive and have a shot at winning some races.

"I have never been to either of the last two racetracks, Phoenix or Homestead," added McCumbee. "Actually, it will be my first time visiting both of these tracks, so it should be pretty interesting as the final two races wind down, and we will see how it goes. I am looking forward to it, but with all of the momentum we have had the last few weeks, I think it is going to pour into next week."

For more information on Chad McCumbee, contact Zach Drager at DSG by calling (704) 455-2051 and be sure to stop by the all new www.chadmccumbee.com

With only five races to go in the season for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Green Light Racing driver Chad McCumbee and the No. 08 The GPS Store/Garmin team are hoping every lap counts, starting with this weekend's Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.

The last four races have been nothing short of frustrating for McCumbee and company, plagued by tire problems and mechanical failures. After a fuel pump issue at Talladega foiled their plans for a top-15 finish, the team behind the No. 08 Chevrolet Silverado hopes that all of their bad luck is behind them in time to score Rookie-of-the-Year candidate McCumbee's first career win before season's end.

But that's not to say the Green Light team wouldn't be just as content with a top-10 finish at this half-mile paperclip. Short tracks like Martinsville are a good place to get caught up in other people's wrecks, as McCumbee found out at Bristol in August. But the experience he's gained on the short tracks over the course of the year, including battling for the lead at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis, should help McCumbee find his way to the front of the pack during Saturday's event.

"I am excited about going to Martinsville this weekend", said McCumbee. "We have been doing some short track testing over the last couple weeks and I would say we are going to be much better than I was at the spring race at Martinsville". Bobby Dotter, co-owner of Green Light Racing had great success at Martinsville as a driver and hopes to assist his rookie driver towards a top 10 finish this weekend. "Martinsville has always been a great track for us in the past and I think Chad has found a good balance over the last few short track tests, so we should be in the ballpark right off the truck", said Dotter.

McCumbee remains 18th in overall driver standings, 36 points behind 17th place Aric Almirola. He also remains second in Rookie-of-the-Year standings, 41 points behind leader Erik Darnell.

Qualifying for the Kroger 200 at Martinsville is set for 5 p.m. ET on Friday, with the race scheduled for 1:15 p.m. ET on Saturday. The race broadcast will begin at 12:30 p.m. ET on SPEED. More information on the Kroger 200 race weekend can be found at www.martinsvillespeedway.com.