LOOKING IN ON: MOTOR SPORTS

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006 | 7:29 a.m.

Chad McCumbee has been turning heads in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series garage this season - but not always for his performance on the track.

McCumbee might be more recognizable to race fans for his portrayal of Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the ESPN original movie "3: The Dale Earnhardt Story" than he is as the driver of the No. 08 Chevy for Green Light Racing.

McCumbee, 21, was racing Late Model stock cars and working as an instructor at a driving school in 2004 when he stumbled into his first acting job.

Barry Pepper, who played Dale Earnhardt in the movie, went to the Fast Track High Performance Driving School to prepare for his role and noticed that McCumbee bore more than a passing resemblance to Earnhardt Jr. Pepper recommended McCumbee to director Russell Mulcahy, McCumbee read for the role and the North Carolina native was cast as Earnhardt Jr. in the movie.

"The reason that I did that (movie) was strictly for marketability," McCumbee said before last weekend's Smith's Las Vegas 350 truck race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

"I'm not a kid with a whole lot of money and I didn't come from it, so I've got to be able to market myself and be a good spokesperson for my team and for my sponsor. That was the best way to do it.

"I was a Late Model driver at Myrtle Beach Speedway and really didn't know what way to turn, and then that kind of fell in my lap. It gave me instant name and face recognition. It definitely helped that part of it."

That's not to say that there wasn't a downside to being instantly recognizable. For the better part of last year, while he was racing in the ARCA series, McCumbee had to battle the perception that he was an actor trying to become a racer.

"I had to make sure that everybody knew that I'm a race car driver and not an actor," he said. "I was able to get the media and the press coverage that I needed to be able to explain that I was a driver who just got an opportunity to act and experience something I'll probably never get again."

A little more than a year after the movie debuted on ESPN, McCumbee landed a full-time ride in the Truck Series with Green Light Racing. Through 19 races, McCumbee has a pair of top-10 finishes and is 18th in points.

McCumbee made only a cameo appearance in last weekend's Smith's Las Vegas 350, dropping out after 32 laps when his No. 08 The GPS Store/Garmin truck developed an oil leak.

That outing notwithstanding, McCumbee said he is happy with the way his rookie season in the Truck Series is progressing.

"It's really competitive over here and a lot more dollars are being spent over here, and it's pretty impressive," McCumbee said.

"We're obviously one of the smaller teams, but we're beating a lot of the top teams out here. We're starting to get a lot of attention for what we're doing, and people are starting to look at us as a serious threat now."

And, finally, the majority of people in the NASCAR garage realize that McCumbee is more serious about racing than acting.

"That was only two weeks of my entire life," he said about his work in the movie, "and I've been racing for 11 years."

IRL at Daytona

Several Indy Racing League drivers took part in what was being called a "compatibility test" Tuesday and Wednesday on the 10-turn, 2.73-mile road course at Daytona International Speedway.

Vitor Meira, Sam Hornish Jr., Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon tested the open-wheel cars on the course, which included the high-banked corners in turns 3 and 4.

Although no date has been set for an IRL race at the famed speedway, series President Brian Barnhart said that an open test could be scheduled at Daytona as soon as next season.

"I don't think any sanctioning body would go anywhere with the hopes of just testing," Barnhart said. "I think the ultimate goal would be to race, but we're a long way from there.

"We're going to take the necessary steps to get to racing here. Our hopes would be to talk about it, but it's a long way to get there."

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