This weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, YouTube star Cleetus McFarland will make his second-ever start in NASCAR’s fourth-tier division: the ARCA Racing Series. His first came at fellow drafting track Daytona International Speedway earlier this year, where his in-car live stream on YouTube has nearly 800,000 views — almost as many as the TV broadcast itself.
That weekend in Daytona, the NASCAR world learned in real time how much pull McFarland has. It was fascinating to watch.
McFarland, whose real name is Garrett Mitchell, has nearly 4.3 million subscribers on YouTube. His video persona is popularly traced back to a 90-second, decade-old YouTube upload from 1320 Video, where “Cleetus McFarland” is a character with a 3,000-horsepower Chevrolet Camaro. The description is one sentence: “Bless his red, white, and blue heart, Cleetus is one of the most American race-car drivers we’ve met.”
Mitchell went to law school but started posting on YouTube as Cleetus McFarland, and in 2020, he posted a video titled: “Dropped Out of Law School to Become a Professional Redneck…” He said in the video that he took out student loans for law school, filmed videos after class, and made money from 1320 Video.
Even if you’re unfamiliar with his persona, you can tell the law-school video feels very Garrett, not Cleetus. The redneck accent and volume are toned down, and it’s more laid back than his usual antics (which, right now, include taking $5,000 busted RVs to Talladega for the race).
Mitchell owns a racetrack in Florida called the Freedom Factory, and he showed up to Daytona with less fanfare from the NASCAR side than I expected. Popular non-NASCAR personalities have and do compete in NASCAR — like Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz, action-sports legend Travis Pastrana, longtime racer Hailie Deegan — but it was wild to see how the coverage of Mitchell snowballed as the Daytona race went on.
He yelled recaps of wrecks to his in-car camera mid-race, and once he got wrecked out, his interview with Fox Sports’ Kaitlyn Vincie went viral.
“Well, I was having the best day of my life, ripping around Daytona like a bald eagle,” he told her. “I was flat out. Avoided a wreck, which was awesome. I thought I was the best driver to ever exist in that moment. It was probably because my sleeves were cut off that I was able to pull off that maneuver.” (His sleeves were not cut off at the time, because that would be against NASCAR rules, but they were by the time he got invited into the booth to help commentate the latter parts of the race.)
The interview was typical Cleetus. But it was atypical for NASCAR, and during it, you can hear laughs around Mitchell. It wasn’t what people normally hear.
For this weekend’s ARCA race at Talladega, which airs Saturday afternoon, Fox Sports told me that Mitchell will be part of the show. He’ll have an onboard camera just like Daytona, and the broadcast will talk to him before the race. They’ll also radio him mid-race while he’s in the car, if he doesn’t get wrecked out and time permits. Fox said they understand the following Mitchell brings, which was evident when his Daytona interview and sleeveless booth visit went viral.
I scrolled back a year on the Cleetus McFarland YouTube channel and only found two videos with less than a million views, and both were in the 900,000 range. The ARCA Daytona race did 1.16 million views, which was the best viewership for the race in a decade, while Mitchell’s in-car stream sits at 778,000 views on YouTube.
Mitchell’s participation was such a hit that he went on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s podcast after the race, and also recently gifted him some swans for his home pond. Former NASCAR Cup Series driver Greg Biffle participates in Mitchell’s videos regularly, and current Cup driver Carson Hocevar hopped on a live stream with Mitchell recently to help him virtually practice for Talladega on iRacing.
If you check the NASCAR YouTube channel right now, two days before the Talladega race, the featured video is a scheduled live stream for Mitchell’s in-car camera. That’s extraordinary for a race in the fourth-tier series.
Mitchell’s success and YouTube following is something I love to study. Since my husband and I are fairly new to posting on YouTube, we watch popular channels to learn how they package and present videos. I find that popular internet personalities are often popular in one place, but it’s hard to bring people to a new platform. For example, anecdotally:
- People are generous with follows and likes on Instagram, but they’re often not mobilized from the platform. It’s easy to like a photo but not really invest in the person in it.
- It’s hard to convert from TikTok to YouTube, because if people see you in short bursts, they usually don’t get to know you well — especially if their algorithm only shows you to them occasionally. I love watching TikTok but don’t put a ton of effort into posting, because of the people I watch there, I’ve only followed a handful on other platforms.
- Twitter gives insight into your personality and creates relationships with followers, but it’s an unstable platform in its current era.
- YouTube, if done correctly, creates deep relationships with your subscribers. They know you, or your YouTube persona, because they spend so much time with your voice and presence on their screen.
Mitchell has the perfect combination for YouTube and NASCAR stardom. His fanbase is highly mobilized, because he lives a dream life for a lot of dudes who watch YouTube: he builds cars, races them, does challenges with his friends to see who can buy the best cheap vehicles, and now, races in NASCAR. I have real-life, local friends who make frequent trips to see the races Mitchell hosts, and from what I’ve seen, his fans would travel to watch him drive a lawnmower.
That YouTube stardom, which began as a redneck meme, allows Mitchell to continue to behave as that meme while running NASCAR races — something people want, but often miss, in modern NASCAR. So much of racing is just “Drive fast and be boring,” because racing depends on sponsors, and boring is safe. To have his own enterprise outside of racing, where his income isn’t dependent on following traditional sponsor rules, allows Mitchell to break that mold. That makes him a hotbed for NASCAR virality.
I don’t know Mitchell personally, but I do find his approach to the internet — and real-life racing career — textbook-worthy. He’s turned a joke into an empire, and now, he’s using that empire to go racing.
It’s anyone’s dream, and that’s why they watch.
Top graphic images: Cleetus McFarland/YouTube/NASCAR; depositphotos.com
In this episode of Car Trek…
Tavarish, Hoovie, and Ed buy terrible import cars and take them to the Freedom Factory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7TDaOGDAo
I adore Cleetus. I’ve been following his channel since the Leroy days (or maybe before). Yes, the redneck schtick can get a hair old sometimes, but the channel is incredibly entertaining.
I’m stoked that he bought the Freedom Factory and has proven that racetracks aren’t all dead; they just need a different strategy to succeed. The Crown Vic races, Danger Ranger, and the Altima races are hilarious.
It’s also super cool that his genuine care for people is a big part of why he’s doing NASCAR now. He met Biffle due to needing a landing zone while using his personal helicopter (Consuela) to help the folks who were affected by the massive hurricane that took out a chunk of North Carolina, etc.
He seems like a genuinely nice dude and I’m happy that his dreams are seemingly coming true.
I’ve watched some of his stuff I find it interesting he was able to get his hands on a race track and a airport. He has some weirdo as a camera guy that I can’t stand always very annoying in the back ground making very dumb comments and generally being wrong about everything also terrible camera work. I find many others much more appealing like VGG, Pole barn, Junk yard, pudin, sleeperdude. They all kind of fit that redneck mold but don’t try hard for it but admit it. Media has definitely evolved and the rot brain tik tok people probably find him amusing so I guess only makes sense for NASCAR to get him in there he is basically running events of their roots with stock cars and a circle track.
VGG is far more entertaining and long term sustainable. Not everything he does is a win, but I admire the “let’s work with what we’ve got instead of throwing $10,000 in sponsor parts at builds every episode” approach.
The Gran Torino Elite and LeSabre episodes are pure gold.
I’m sorry this guy is funny but I grew up around rednecks and this isn’t even close.
The redneck shtick is very attractive to only a particular demographic, while being quite off putting to the rest of us.
I started watching some of his videos because his crew were doing cool stuff with drag racing and hot rodding, but the redneck thing definitely isn’t something I can get behind.
Working in the mechanical trades, I’ve got a fair tolerance for redneck highjinks. I was getting away from Hoonigan as the heavy music and jerky in&out camera shots seemed to be getting more important than actual nuts and bolts builds, so I followed the development of Leroy the Vette cart.
My tolerance only goes so far: I think the last video of his I saw was when they fed silicon breast implants through a massive turbo at high rpm. I noped out.
Enough of that.
The novelty wears off of his “I needed something I could film and publish in a hurry” content quickly.
This guy is awesome and then some. I’m pumped for the ‘Dega race (Sat 12:30).
Also his Crown Vic series is coming to town here next weekend, OMG.
No thanks, I don’t watch trump supporters.
Ah yes, the tolerant Left… It must be exhausting hating half the country.