Millions of us have spent the last few years watching Cleetus McFarland act out his wildest dreams in front of a camera as a versatile wild man in anything with an engine attached to it. From 7-second passes in his beloved Leroy, which was at one-time a salvaged C5 Corvette but now looks like Dr. Frankenstein picked up a racing habit, to routine McDonald's trips in his Ripsaw Tank. Cleetus is essentially what every kid who loves motorsports dreamed of being if they ever won the lottery. Instead of winning the lottery he grew his YouTube channel to the heights of 3 million subscribers and with his YouTube success opened avenues to do things he himself only dreamed of.
I had been aware of Cleetus for a while introduced by seeing videos of his "Dale Truck" some years ago. The "Dale Truck" is actually a street-legal Richard Childress Craftsman Truck from the 90s with the black #3 Goodwrench scheme. Back then, despite being dubbed the "Do it for Dale" guy, Cleetus was pretty focused on street cars and drag racing and other wild antics but wasn't doing much to appeal to the circle track fans.
That all changed when McFarland purchased The Freedom Factory. Formerly known as Desoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida. The track shut down in the late 2010's and sat vacant for a few years before McFarland took on the project of renovating it into his motorsports playground. A lot of the progress is documented on his YouTube channel for those interested.
Since then they've hosted various oval events at the property including his own Freedom 500 and 24h of LeMullets events. McFarland bought a fleet of about 50 Ford Crown Victorias and got them race-ready with safety and graphics. And in true Cleetus-fashion outfitted each car with a Nitrous system to be used in-race. Some NASCAR names including Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch and the Deegans were involved. And Ross Chastain even came by last year to help Cleetus recreate the Hail Melon at the Freedom Factory.
On top of his own events this year they had their first sanctioned series event hosting the SRL Sportsman Series. Still it seems as though Cleetus doesn't get the popularity among NASCAR and circle-track fans that he deserves. In a couple weeks he'll be hosting one of his Danger Ranger events, essentially a truck enduro field full of Ford Rangers, at Bristol Motor Speedway on the dirt surface and it seems odd that there isn't as much buzz in our corner of the world as I know there is outside of it. So I was curious to see how much of our Couch Racer community crosses over with the Cleetus Fanbase. Rather than simply running a poll, I thought I'd also give a nice introduction for those who haven't heard of him yet. I'm hopeful that if more NASCAR fans engage, we'll get to see more crossover in the content.
4 comments
The man is a marketing genius. Been watching the channel since they were running 8s and thrilled with that. Now he’s on a quest to run 5s and possibly have the world’s fastest radial car. I’d love to see Justin Marks throw Cleet in the project 91 car for a race somewhere. Maybe fall Bristol or the next Richmond race.
Can’t tell you how much I love to watch Cleetus and his crew on YouTube. The guy knows how to entertain and is super talented in several disciplines. Not to mention he is just a good person simply wanting to have fun.
Cleetus has done so much for motorsports. Honestly track owners should be looking to him for ideas on how to make their tracks more adaptable in making revenue beyond a weekly racing series. Also someone needs to get Cleet in a nascar sanctioned race. He seams to be able to excel in everything he drives.
Him and Bowman are buddies and Kurt Bush has won one of his events.