Cleetus McFarland is a car enthusiast with a blessing—his very own race track. That means he can run crazy events that no motorsports body would ever approve. Enter the Altima 600 – a circle track race cum destruction derby for the most dangerous Nissans ever to grace public roads.
Hilariously, the event was effectively open to all comers with a stock Nissan Altima, no experience required. The only stipulations were that you brought a stock car and showed up with a helmet. The field was made up of experienced amateur racers, YouTubers, and a gaggle of others, some of whom had little to no track experience whatsoever.
It’s one thing to race a bunch of haggard Nissan Altimas on track. It’s another thing to race seventy-six of them at the same time with random people who just showed up on the day. Oh, and did we mention all this is on a 3/8th-mile circle track? It’s the kind of badass, backwoods racing you’ll only see at the Freedom Factory.
Some of the Altimas in action were properly race-prepped prior to combat, with racing seats, harnesses, and simple roll cages. However, the race rules were incredibly permissive on the safety front. You could run stock seats and seatbelts with nothing but a race helmet if you were so brave. Beyond safety mods, cars had to remain entirely stock— DOT-rated tires, standard suspension, standard drivetrain.
As you might imagine, the field of 76 cars wound a third of the way around the track when all bunched up at the start. Despite the congestion, the start was surprisingly mature. You might have expected an instant pileup, but no major crashes occurred on lap 1. Still, by the end of it, the leaders were already catching the back of the pack. The joys of small tracks!
With so many competitors, the fleet was rich and varied. Each team gave their car a unique visual flair. The field ranges from largely complete examples with clean vinyl graphics, to beat-up rust buckets with lights and bumpers missing and homebrew rattle-can paint jobs. One particularly striking entry sported a couch on the roof.
Keeping track of the race positions was immediately impossible beyond just watching the timing board, but that’s not really what this was all about. The spectacle for the audience was top-notch, regardless. Think back to the last time you drove to the airport, and a nutcase Altima driver blasted past you at 100 miles an hour with the bumper hanging off. Multiply that nutcase seventy-fold and that’s a reasonable description of the action above.
Early in the race, Cleetus himself made grand progress by whipping around on the highline above most of the traffic. That might have remained a successful strategy, save for the quirky rules for this event. The race ran on green and red lights only—no cautions. In the event of a crash, the race would stop so the drivers could be extracted. Racing would then resume—with the stranded cars left in place.
Before long, the high line was littered with Altima corpses, and the track grew increasingly tighter for the remaining competitors. It’s the kind of thing no sanctioning authority would ever allow. At the Freedom Factory, though… drama reigned.
A fuel leak for the Speedycop entry was enough to send safety crews running to flip it over and stem the flow. Surviving Altimas flung lost bumpers and trim high into the air. A pileup turned one corner into the zipper merge from hell. And yet, the race reportedly ended without injury, a blessing amidst the hilarious danger.
I won’t spoil the results, but there was actual racing beyond the carnage. Cleetus spent much of the race duking it out with the #88 JH Diesel, with plenty of rubbing and racing as the two diced for the top spot. Bumper taps were just the appetizer as the duo routinely knocked each other sideways during their duel.
Many of us dream of one day owning a race track and hooning a fleet of nonsense vehicles with our friends. Cleetus McFarland has an uncanny ability to make such nonsense dreams a reality. The world had never before seen 76 Altimas doing battle on the track, and the world may never see it again. But for one glorious weekend, it happened, and we have all been lucky enough to witness the carnage.
Image credits: Cleetus McFarland via YouTube screenshot
pls help what is a “circle track race cum destruction derby” ????
All I know is that it was “open to all comers”
I wonder how many were overdue for oil changes by a couple thousand miles.
Hot damn, Cleetus did it.
Next race is in October if you’re so inclined, registration will be opening soon, expected cap 100 CARS!
Oh, be still, my continuously variable transmission.
By the end of the race I think a lot of them were 😉
Are Nissans (especially Altimas) really that bad, or it’s simply like when a kid, or one of the animals in its pack gets bullied by some, and suddenly all the others join the “fun”?
The way I’ve heard it: It’s not that they’re bad. Nissan doesn’t have the cachet of Honda or Toyota, so Altimas depreciate faster than Accords and Camrys, so used ones get bought by people on tight budgets with no money for upkeep. Altimas are also usually relatively powerful for their class, so they lend themselves to aggressive driving. It creates an “exciting” combination.
I guess I somewhat understand it now, but still don’t see why should it make a car so widely hated. I mean, it seems to be more than just joking, judged by the occurence (not its plain existence, more like its qulaity) of this phenomenon at so many different parts of the internet.
Yep, the 4th and 5th gens had the same VQ35DE V6 engine as the early model 350zs. I’d imagine the VQs in the altimas were not as powerful, but still.
It’s a classic case of a car being defined by the people who own it. As a car it’s probably not appreciably worse than most other mid-size sedans (the argument could be made that they’re harder to kill than most) but the stereotype of the Altima owner as falling in a grey area between negligent and belligerent is pretty on point.
For me that kind of image looks to be still less problematic, than being associated with the people who are so full of themselves because they own a Toyota, or a car from about any german manufacturer (maybe Opel being the only exception).
Altimas are fine cars. Because they don’t hold their value like some other vehicles, they find themselves owned by people with no maintenance schedule (and possibly no insurance).
As I understand it, they’re not bad but they’re the essentially the worst in their segment which leads to worse depreciation. It’s a poor financial choice that adds insult to injury but also being not as nice. If you have new car money, just don’t do that to yourself.
As a used car, that depreciation can get you more car for your money with an Altima. If resale value isn’t a priority (or a luxury you can’t afford to consider) it can maybe be a good choice.
I can’t speak to previous generations but the 4 cyl rental spec rental Altima I had last summer impressed me. It was comfortable, got great MPG (for a non hybrid), handled well and at no point did I find myself wishing for a geared automatic. Even the touchscreen worked pretty well for me.
The one truly standout feature I know of is safety. A few years ago one was rearended by a semi on a bridge, hard enough to fold the car like a taco coming to rest on top. The driver of the Altima was pulled out with nothing but minor injuries!
It kind of pained me to see those SE-Rs and 6 speed V6 Altimas. I’ve never even driven one, but a VQ paired with a manual is always special, IMO.
They were lapping the 4 cylinder CVT Altimas easily.
I had an SE-R. Good car but the auto trans was bad. It actually terrified me more than once with its decision to downshift.
I wanted to race in this one as it’s not too far from me. The local Facebook marketplace was wiped clean of cheap running Altimas for this race.
so a win/win?
Fun for clunkers.
I was surprised to see a first gen Altima in there. Even in rust-free California I haven’t seen one of those on the road in ages.
Ha. That was a fun little surprise.