Published Jun 24, 2026, 12:04 PM EDT
Ryan Northrup is a Senior Staff Writer on ScreenRant’s Movie & TV News team, where he has authored nearly 5,000 articles, including features and reviews. A graduate of McMaster University, Ryan began his career in public relations before attending Vancouver Film School. There, he built lasting industry connections and optioned a feature film screenplay.
An Outer Banks star has found his next TV project.
First premiering on Netflix in 2020, the teen drama has been a major hit for the streamer, giving big boosts to the careers of stars Chase Stokes, Madelyn Cline, and Madison Bailey, among others. Outer Banks season 5 is set to release on August 20, bringing the show to a close, but one actor is already looking ahead to what comes next.
Per Deadline, Stokes, who plays John B. Routledge on Outer Banks, has joined the cast of Thunder Road, a NASCAR show. The AMC series is set to star Dennis Quaid and will chronicle the multi-generational story of the 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 will play Ronnie Whitlock in Thunder Road, who is described as something of a rebel with an “outlaw smile, a devil-may-care attitude, a fire burning within him.” The rest of the character bio, included below, teases that he may have a chip on his shoulder from a failed racing career:
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.
Quaid, who recently appeared in Netflix’s War Machine (2026), is set to play Duane Whitlock, a racing legend, in the show. Sporting the nickname, The Wrecking Ball, Duane is described as “a towering figure who built a racing empire from a legacy of moonshine runs and dirt tracks and refuses to let it die.”
Thunder Road is expected to start filming this summer, with a release then planned on AMC and the AMC+ streaming service at some point next year. Tyler Elmore will serve as showrunner for the upcoming series, with Marco Polo’s John Fusco executive producing. Other executive producers include Cliff Roberts with Syndicate Entertainment, Mark L. Smith, and Tim Clark and John Dahl of NASCAR Studios.
The upcoming AMC series is produced in association with NASCAR, marking an interesting first in the entertainment landscape. It is now the first long-form drama to partner with the organization.
It remains to be seen whether Thunder Road will become as big of a hit as Stokes’ other series, but the Outer Banks season 4 finale has set the Netflix show up for a climactic season 5. Outer Banks puts Stokes front and center, with John B. recruiting his friends to look for hidden treasure, unraveling larger conspiracies in the process.
Stokes is best known for Outer Banks, but he may also be known to viewers for his roles in movies like Valiant One (2025), Marked Men (2025), and Uglies (2024), as well as the Tell Me Your Secrets miniseries. Quaid, meanwhile, has recently appeared in projects like Signal One (2026), I Can Only Imagine 2 (2026), Sovereign (2025), and Broke (2025).
](/db/tv-show/outer-banks/)
](/tag/action-movies/)
](/tag/adventure/)
](/tag/mystery/)
2020 - 2026-00-00