Driver Profile: Terry McCarl
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
(Eric Arnold) Seven-time Knoxville Championship Cup Series winner Terry McCarl is one of the most successful drivers of the historic half-mile. His 54 career wins at Knoxville Raceway rank fourth on the all-time wins list. After 30 years in sprint car racing, Terry is still on top of his game, and he showed that last week in Las Vegas by winning his eleventh career World of Outlaws feature. Terry is one of the favorites to compete for the 2015 Knoxville Championship Cup Series and for the new National Sprint League title.
Terry is extremely passionate about sprint car racing, and racing is a huge part of his family. His father Lenard is a Knoxville Raceway Hall of Fame inductee and has won two features at Knoxville, both in 1975. Lenard also manufactured his own sprint car chassis’ for several years, and won track championships as an owner in the 1980’s with Rocky Hodges and Randy Smith.
At the age of 20, Terry first sat in a sprint car at Knoxville Raceway in the Daryl Arend #1a. Terry finished tenth in points his rookie year and had a breakout season in 1986, winning three consecutive Saturday nights that season on his way to a fifth place points finish.
Terry moved to California to race up and down the west coast in 1991 and 1992, enjoyed wins at several different tracks, and formed relationships that still help him in racing today.
From 1993 to 1996, Terry was back home in Iowa, where he was the runner-up in Knoxville Raceway points four consecutive seasons while winning ten features in that span. The friendly rivalry between Terry and Danny Lasoski was at its peak in these years: Lasoski won three of the four championships in that stretch, and Johnny Herrera won one.
In 1997, Terry raced primarily in Ohio with the All-Star Circuit of Champions in the Holbrook 8H car, where he finished seventh in points.
A great opportunity came to Terry in 1999 when he was able to drive for car owner Guy Forbrook in the #5 sprint car. The long-time rivals became a team that would win six features on their way to winning the track championship that season. A year later, Terry won his second championship aboard the Serace #55 owned car.
From 2001 to 2004, Terry “T-Mac” McCarl would dominate the Knoxville Raceway weekly scene in his own #24 car. During this time, he won 15 features and four more championships to become the only driver to win six consecutive championships. In 2004, Terry came close to becoming the first Iowan to win the Knoxville Nationals, starting on the pole and leading the first half of the race.
In 2005, Terry hit the road to compete with the World of Outlaws. He would go on to win six Outlaw features over the span of four years on the tour and capped off the 2007 season with a third-place finish in the Knoxville Nationals.
Terry won his seventh Knoxville Raceway track championship in 2012 following a heated season-long battle with Davey Heskin.
T-Mac’s racing career has been astounding, and includes the following highlights:
-11 World of Outlaws wins
-15 All-Star wins
-54 Knoxville wins (including two Knoxville Nationals preliminary features)
-Three-time winner of the 360 Knoxville Nationals
-18 top-five point finishes at Knoxville Raceway
-Eight-time Huset’s Speedway track champion
-started the Knoxville Nationals A-Main 18 times with three top-five finishes and six top-ten’s
-over 280 feature wins
Now, a third generation of McCarl’s are racing, continuing the family tradition. Terry and his wife Lori have two son’s, Austin and Carson, who are both talented drivers. The younger McCarl’s are each building an admirable racing career – Austin raced the 2011 Knoxville Nationals A-Main, and Carson won the 2011 305 Track Championship.
Terry and Lori are also race promoters and will put on the 20th Front Row Challenge at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa on Monday, August 10. The event’s winner will take home $20,000.
For 2015, Terry is looking for his eighth Knoxville Championship Cup Series win. He has a head-start on the season after racing in Australia in January, Florida in February, and on the west coast in March with the World of Outlaws, where he picked up a win. T-Mac will carry that momentum into the season opener on April 18th at Knoxville Raceway.
Good luck to Terry, Austin, and Carson this 2015 season!
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