Inside The Garage: YouTube Star Cleetus McFarland Hits Rockingham

Rockingham Speedway (Rockingham, N.C.) — Cleetus McFarland had finished his O’Reilly Series debut and had something to say.

"All this internet talk got me thinking, maybe I shouldn't come back," McFarland told me and other reporters as he stood outside his car with a big smile. 

"Psyche. See you guys in two weeks. Talladega."

There was a reason for the YouTube content creator to smile. He had done what was asked of him, as he completed 244 of the 250 laps. But most importantly, he didn’t ruin anyone’s day Saturday at Rockingham.

He did have four spins — a couple of true spins and a couple of others where he just got sideways. He also avoided a spinning car.

The 31-year-old McFarland likely did what he needed to do to be approved for Talladega, although NASCAR could require him to go from the 0.94-mile Rockingham to the 1.5-mile oval at Kansas before doing the high-banked 2.66-mile O’Reilly race at Talladega. He does have experience at Talladega, though, in an ARCA car.

It has been an eventful couple of months for McFarland, who bought a racetrack (DeSoto Speedway) six years ago in Florida to produce content for his YouTube channel. He does some drag races and also produces content with a fleet of Crown Vics that he owns. With now 4.67 million subscribers, he reaches an audience that NASCAR desperately wants. 

McFarland has caught the NASCAR bug and ran a few ARCA events last year. He was able to race a truck in February at Daytona, which lasted a handful of laps before he crashed on his own.

Embarrassed and frustrated, he didn’t know where his NASCAR journey would take him. But Richard Childress Racing reached out, with Ty Dillon — a grandson of Childress who races Cup for Kaulig Racing — being the one who felt RCR could give McFarland the support he needs.

So they worked up a plan to get him to race Talladega, and the first step was Rockingham, a shorter but fast track just short of a mile in length. McFarland was able to test there a few weeks ago because all rookies get one test.

"When I got this opportunity from RCR, I knew I was going in over my head — just like all these people who are scrutinizing me think," McFarland told me and other reporters on a virtual news conference four days before the race. "But I'm not going to shy away from a great opportunity such as racing for Richard Childress Racing."

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McFarland finished 32nd in his debut, one spot better than where he started. And he admitted he was over his head.

"Oh yeah," he said afterward. "I had a ton of confidence. Then I spun out. Then about 50 laps into the race, ... I got my confidence back and I'm feeling good.

"And then that carried on for a while. When I spun out on my own and killed my tires, and then had to go back on my first set of tires, I went out, and I'm thinking to myself, ‘All right, I cannot do anything stupid again.’ ... I am way in over my head, but I knew we just had to get to the end, and that's what we did."

For McFarland, it was all about learning. So being at the rear of the field after a spin or after he sped on pit road, it was all a learning experience. He just didn’t want to ruin anyone’s day, and he did not.

"I did avoid one crash, and that's probably because my sleeves were cut off," he quipped in referring to his signature fashion style.

McFarland’s profession is social media, so he had heard all that was said about how he shouldn’t have been approved to race in O’Reilly (formerly Xfinity) until he had more truck events.

"Closer to Daytona, when I had the big screwup in the truck, I was feeling a little down on myself," McFarland said. "At this point, the record is so broken of people still talking about it, I don't care as much.

"At the end of the day, all these guys can say whatever they want about me. But if Richard Childress called them and said, ‘Hey, you want to come drive our car?’ All of them would have taken that opportunity, too."

The veterans in the series recognize that.

"I don't envy that position at all,"  said Justin Allgaier, the 2024 O’Reilly Series champion who leads the 2026 standings. "I know that today had to be really tough on him, and especially with kind of some of the social media stuff that he's had going against him in the last few weeks.

"So I was proud of him putting the effort in and trying to make sure that he was where he needed to be out to go and have a solid day."

Would Allgaier draft with him at Talladega later this month?

"I can't answer that, because I think there's a couple that we race with weekly that I don't know that I want to draft with at Talladega," Allgaier said.

Allgaier noted that McFarland did a good job in the earlier race Saturday when he finished fourth in the ARCA East event. At that level (think of it like rookie-league baseball and O’Reilly as AAA), he can be competitive. And he’s learning how much work it takes to be competitive at the higher levels.

NASCAR keeps its approval process somewhat subjective because drivers have a variety of experiences. Or in McFarland’s case, not much traditional racing experience. Some will view his presence as awesome because of the notoriety – few drivers get the cheers he does when they get out of the car. And some view his presence with disdain because he hasn’t followed the traditional path of learning in either the sprint-car or late model ranks.                              

"If NASCAR is letting me do it, I'm in," McFarland said. "I'm here. And no one can save me but myself at this point. ... It's up to me.

"They can complain as much as they'd like, but it's happening, and so they better buckle up."

To Waive Or Not

NASCAR has a decision to make this week on whether to grant Kaulig Racing driver Corey LaJoie a waiver to make him eligible for the playoffs. LaJoie replaced the suspended-then-reinstated-then-resigned Daniel Dye in the Kaulig No. 10 truck.

LaJoie, who had attempted to make the Daytona 500, had been registered as a Cup driver. A driver can change his primary series once during a year, but then his points get reset to zero in both his previous and new series.

With only 11 races left in the regular season, it would be hard for LaJoie to make it into the top-10 in points to make the Chase. He is 84 points out of 10th. It would take at least a few wins, and the Kaulig equipment with the new Ram entries likely isn’t up to that level.

But it still will set a precedent on whether NASCAR will grant a waiver — the rules remain that a driver must attempt to start every race to be Chase eligible — in a situation where a team and driver part ways. NASCAR granted one to Matt Kenseth after Kyle Larson’s suspension in 2020, but Larson was still under suspension when Kenseth was named the driver. In this situation, Dye has been reinstated after completing the sensitivity training that was required after his comments mocking gay men on a livestream. 

One area where NASCAR won’t grant a waiver is clear. Corey Heim, the defending truck series champion, leads the standings despite missing two races. NASCAR will not grant a waiver for a driver who doesn’t have sponsorship or a ride. It doesn’t want to encourage teams or drivers to take weekends off to focus on certain events. While that is much less likely in this new points system, where a win no longer gets a driver an automatic bid into the postseason, it’s still a possibility.

In The News

— Casey Mears will try to get to 500 career Cup starts by attempting to qualify for five races with Beard Motorsports: Both Talladega races, Indianapolis, Daytona and Homestead.

— Carson Ferguson, who finished second in the RAM "Race for the Seat" driver tryout show/competition, will be in the Kaulig No. 25 truck this weekend at Bristol. He also will still do Martinsville later this year as planned.

Under The Radar

Rajah Caruth picked up his best finish in the O’Reilly Series as he placed fourth at Rockingham this weekend.

Stat Of Note

This is the first season in which Richard Childress Racing does not have a top-10 finish in the first seven Cup races.

They Said It

"It means everything." — William Sawalich after his first career O’Reilly Series win. 

In Inside The Garage, Bob Pockrass takes us behind the scenes of the motorsports world the way only he can.