CONCORD, N.C. Chase McDermand enters his fourth Xtreme Outlaw Midgets Series presented by Toyota season flying the colors of his own race team for the first time.

The Springfield, Ill., native is operating as an owner-driver for Chase McDermand Racing, driving a new Toyota power plant under his No. 40 machine.

This is a new frontier to a future that McDermand wants to explore further into the season of national midget racing.

I feel like Im more well-rounded than I was two and a half years ago when we first started with Xtreme, McDermand said. I feel like a lot of that has to do with the number of new and different tracks that we all get to see throughout your career. It helps you exponentially as a driver, and just getting to be able to go to a new place and figure it out quicker than everybody else that can give you an advantage moving forward.

As many race tracks that I have raced at, that definitely kept me on my toes. As well as being my own team owner, crew chief, and all of that stuff will take its toll from time to time on me, but its very rewarding with all the people around me, our partners, and sponsors. Im looking forward to having another year under my belt with Xtreme, and Im looking forward to getting it started (at Farmer City).

McDermand got a taste of orchestrating a team of multiple cars at the NOS Energy Drink Chili Bowl Nationals in January by fielding three cars one for himself, NASCAR Xfinity Series competitor Josh Bilicki, and development driver Steven Snyder Jr.

Its always nice to be able to have multiple cars at the racetrack, McDermand said. Ive wanted to be a team owner and its steps in the right direction for me. It was super cool to work with Josh and Stephen again, and its a lot of work. Its a huge undertaking to get three cars (to Tulsa), so it was a long week. Very exhausting, but we learned quite a bit of stuff from the racing that we can apply to the future, and Im glad that I had more cars to get feedback that helps me as a car owner, car chief and driver.

McDermand began his Xtreme Outlaw Midgets journey with Mounce/Stout Motorsports from 2022-2023, picking up seven feature wins with the Tulsa, Okla., based squad.

In 2024, after McDermands original plan with Dave Mac-Dalby Motorsports fell through, he received support from Mounce/Stout to help the 24-year-old driver go the distance with the Series. In return, he scored a win at Tulsa Speedway and finished a career-high third in the standings.

Something that takes a little bit to get used to is having the consistency versus the number of wins, McDermand said. 2023, we had a lot of speed that year with six wins, but we also had a lot of DNFs, and that took us out of championship contention. Last year, we barely picked up a win halfway through the year, which felt like forever. But we had a lot more top fives, but we had a DNF and a couple of runs outside the top 10 that quickly changed our contention.

Were trying to find that balance with the car, and constantly learning. This is the first national series that I chased a championship with, and its definitely not easy and its proved to be rather challenging. We upgraded our engine package with us switching to Toyota, so Im hoping it can bring more reliability and little less headaches throughout the year.

McDermand is eager to compete around his Illinois homestead with Farmer City Raceway, Spoon River Speedway, Coles County Speedway, and Highland Speedway on the 2025 Xtreme schedules lineup. And has his sights on another trophy from tracks hes already won at.

Everything that sticks out to me on the schedule is the places Ive won before, McDermand said. Coles County, weve had good speed there. Thats a place within an hour and a half from us, so having a two-day show there is really cool. I used to race at Spoon River quite a bit several years ago, so thats always a good place to race. I just really hope we can get the weather to coordinate with us during (Appalachian Midget Week).