Cleetus McFarland officially has his first NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race in the books. He finished the day at Rockingham, checking in at P32 but with a car that was mostly intact.

Despite a few spins, McFarland avoided most of the major contact and came out feeling pretty good about his day overall. He shared how the experience went with Kyle Petty post-race.

“O’Reilly, as predicted got my butt kicked,” McFarland said. “But I finished the race. Our goal as a team was to finish the race and not get last. So we did meet our goals. We did have higher expectations, or higher wants — I think we got to 26th for a minute and I was like so excited just to hear that that literally the next corner I went in and spun out because I was just going too danged fast for my own abilities.”

Many had their doubts about how the viral social media star would fare at this level — Cleetus McFarland included. Yet when push came to shove, he often looked the part.

There were far too many self-induced spins to call it a good run. But, as noted, McFarland finished the race cleanly.

“I certainly did (try to follow others),” McFarland said. “I was already way back in the field, I got behind Jesse Love when he was saving tires. And I could catch him, but just watching his line, I was like, ‘Shoot, I’ve been doing that wrong all day.’ Learned so much and the guys were helping me a lot on the radios. It was great.

“I mean I think I spun out 50 times, almost died 10 times. And overall I’m here with a car that’s not destroyed. I didn’t ruin anyone’s day, which was my main goal. I did want to stay out of the news more. You know, Dale Jr. said, ‘Please, stay out of the news.’ That was my goal. But several times I just overdrove the corner, and then the one time I lost it and caused a caution.”

Cleetus McFarland didn’t completely stay out of the news. He was hit with a speeding penalty by NASCAR early on in the third stage of the race.

Still, he came away from the experience sounding like a driver who wants more. He’ll have at least two more races to go — his O’Reilly deal with RCR was for three races.

“I think I could get top 20 if I just eliminated a few of my stupid mistakes,” Cleetus McFarland said. “Let’s talk about one that was really dumb. What was it, lap 3? I went three-wide on the bottom. I don’t have enough skill for that. I don’t know what I was doing, but I was excited and I had a run on the guy. I’m like down to the bottom, then I lost it.

“Luckily I think I made everybody need a change of pants up there with me. But I didn’t like slap up and take them up the hill with me or anything. Just went down, no scratches on the car and kept turning left for Biff.”