Chad McCumbee, No. 8 Chevrolet at Martinsville Speedway. (VPS Motorimages)

Will Chad McCumbee become the fifth under-25 winner of Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway?

If the 23-year-old McCumbee's recent performances on intermediate tracks are any indication, the answer could be yes.

He nearly won last fall in Texas before contact with Jack Sprague knocked McCumbee from the lead on a green-white-checker restart.

McCumbee has led two of the three most recent races on 1.5-mile speedways including last month's stop at Atlanta Motor Speedway where the Supply, N.C., native finished a career-best fifth.

He qualified on the front row at Texas Motor Speedway and Atlanta.

"The intermediates always have been a strength of mine," said McCumbee, whose first top-10 finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series came in June 2006 at 1.5-mile Texas.  "They suit my driving style."

McCumbee has a sense of "feel" greater than his NASCAR Craftsman Truck experience. He agrees that was  key to helping crew chief Randy Dean make the aero adjustments that nearly put the team in Victory Lane at Atlanta.

"We definitely were able to find the right balance that the truck wanted," he said.

McCumbee's best finish at Kansas is 13th, but the driver has run well there in other series.

SOURCE: NASCAR Communications