Dennis Quaid-Led AMC NASCAR Drama ‘Thunder Road’ Casts Matt Barr

EXCLUSIVE: AMC‘s upcoming NASCAR drama series Thunder Road has cast Matt Barr (The Pirate King, Hatfields & McCoys) in a series regular role. He joins the previously announced lead Dennis Quaid, as well as series regular Chase Stokes and Michael Rooker, who will recur.

From John Fusco, Thunder Road is the multi-generational saga of the fictional Whitlock family, whose legacy in stock car racing is as deep as the family’s ties to the Southern hill country roots that shaped them.

Quaid stars as racing legend Duane Whitlock, aka The Wrecking Ball, a towering figure who built a racing empire from a legacy of moonshine runs and dirt tracks and refuses to let it die. With ruthless competitors who will stop at nothing to dethrone and destroy them, the Whitlocks are a blue-collar dynasty at the edge of extinction – and the old king is fighting to hold onto the crown.

Barr will portray Duane’s oldest son, Calvin Whitlock, an attractive and ambitious man who’s been driven out of the business of auto racing for good and doesn’t like to be reminded of it. He now owns the Victory Lane Tap Room and is your basic businessman struggling to keep from drowning in debt while making plans to expand his ever-threatened empire.

Shooting on Thunder Road will begin this summer, targeting a 2027 launch on AMC and AMC+.

Deadline broke the news that the series was in the works back in November, as well as the addition of Quaid in the driver’s seat, in April. The network officially ordered the series in late April.

Fusco is set to executive produce alongside showrunner Taylor Elmore, Cliff Roberts with Syndicate Entertainment, Mark L. Smith, and NASCAR Studio’s Tim Clark and John Dahl. Gladys Cheng serves as producer. The show is produced in association with NASCAR.

Barr recently appeared opposite Rob Riggle, Billie Lourd and Jordana Brewster in The Pirate King, which had its world premiere at SXSW. Up next, he will appear opposite Joel Kinnaman in High Value Target. Barr previously starred in the Kevin Costner limited series Hatfields & McCoys, and led the series Blood & Treasure and Walker: Independence. Barr is repped by UTA, Luber Roklin and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.