Cleetus McFarland is getting ready to compete at the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Rockingham this weekend, and a good outing could lead to more races in the series. On the Gluckcast, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic spoke to NASCAR Cup Series drivers Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece about what McFarland needs to do at Rockingham to get NASCAR’s approval to compete in additional races.

“Just run on laps. First off, you have to run on the laps,” Briscoe told Gluck. “In a perfect world, you need to not be more than a lap or two down. You can’t go there and run on lap speed, 10 laps down. I think you have to be at least in the mix from a speed standpoint, especially in an RCR (Richard Childress Racing) car. The biggest thing for him is just running all the laps. Rockingham is a hard place to go and not get torn up, and he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know yet.”

“Finish the race,” Preece said. “Just finish the race… Listen, he’s a wheelman. Don’t let him fool you by any means. I was watching TX2K, he’s ripping a car 200-plus miles per hour down a quarter mile. I wouldn’t do that. I don’t want to do that. I admire it. So, going to Rockingham, this is a totally different discipline. I think for him, as a driver and as a fan of motorsports, he’s not afraid to come out and do this.”

Cleetus McFarland crashed at the NASCAR Truck Series race at Daytona

McFarland will drive the No. 33 Chevrolet as part of a three-race deal with RCR. He is also expected to compete at Daytona and Talladega, but he has to gain approval from NASCAR to compete in an O’Reilly Series superspeedway race.

In February, McFarland competed in the NASCAR Truck Series race at Daytona and earned a DNF after wrecking on Lap 6. He also competed in an ARCA race at Daytona on the same weekend and earned a P11 finish.

“To have the opportunity to make my NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut with a legendary race team like Richard Childress Racing is a dream come true,” McFarland said in a press release last month. “It’s a huge honor, and I am incredibly grateful to learn under the leadership of Richard Childress, Mike Verlander, Danny Lawrence, and everyone in Welcome, North Carolina.”