EXCLUSIVE: As he awaits the final season launch of his Netflix YA juggernaut Outer Banks, Chase Stokes has closed a deal to join Dennis Quaid in Thunder Road, AMC‘s NASCAR drama series from Marco Polo‘s John Fusco.

Shooting this summer, for a 2027 launch on AMC and AMC+, Thunder Road follows 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.

Stokes is set for the role of Ronnie Whitlock, who leads with an outlaw smile and a devil-may-care attitude, a fire burning within him. A rebel with a lead foot, he was a promising pro racer before his troublemaking got him bounced from the game and relegated to his cousin Trey’s pit crew. As we previously reported exclusively, Quaid is playing 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.

AMC greenlighted Thunder Road in April, with Fusco set to exec 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 and marks the first long-form drama to partner with the racing organization.

Stokes plays the lead role of John B. Routledge in Netflix’s Outer Banks, which returns for its fifth and final season on August 20. His character is the leader of a group of working-class North Carolina teenagers known as the Pogues, whom he takes on a series of treasure-hunting adventures. The show broke out as a major hit amid the pandemic and has maintained momentum across its first four seasons, peaking in U.S. premiere week viewership with 3.2 billion minutes in Season 3. Split in two parts, which premiered in October and November of 2024, Season 4’s two premiere week launches represented a total of 2.4 billion minutes viewed.

Recently, Stokes has also been seen starring in the military thriller Valiant One, opposite Lana Condor, and Nick Cassavetes’ YA romance Marked Men. Upcoming, he’s set to make his feature directorial debut with I Told the Sunset About You, a project described as a contemporary Bonnie and Clyde romantic thriller. He is represented by UTA, Entertainment 360, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.