{"id":515531,"date":"2026-03-05T07:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515531\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T07:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:50:08","slug":"cleetus-mcfarland-bites-back-on-backlash-to-racing-in-nascar-oreilly-auto-parts-series-im-having-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/515531\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleetus McFarland bites back on backlash to racing in NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: ‘I’m having fun’"},"content":{"rendered":"

News broke Wednesday that Cleetus McFarland will race part-time in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series<\/a>. He will man a car for Richard Childress Racing for three races, starting at Rockingham.<\/p>\n

Already there\u2019s been significant pushback on NASCAR for its approval process. Freddie Kraft, a spotter for Bubba Wallace in the Cup Series, expressed his dismay at Cleetus getting cleared<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But just as shortly thereafter, Cleetus McFarland punched back. He\u2019s not worried about the criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think being a YouTuber for so long, like I\u2019ve just had everything in the world said about me,\u201d McFarland said on the Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201cI expect way more. When I went into drag racing, I was the class clown. They all thought I was a joke because of the way I had my car set up and the way we ran it. It was a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

This feels different for Cleetus McFarland, who is just beginning to get his feet wet behind the wheel of some very powerful racecars. He explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think right now I\u2019m the rookie and people can say whatever they want,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when I keep coming back every time and they realize that their words don\u2019t affect me time and time again they\u2019re going to run out of breath. Because as long as I\u2019m having fun, I\u2019m going to keep showing up at these NASCAR races. Whether I\u2019m in ARCA, Truck or O\u2019Reilly\u2019s, their words on Facebook will not change the fact that I\u2019m going to come back and try again as long as I\u2019m having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleetus McFarland doesn\u2019t have much experience. He has four starts in the ARCA Menards Series and one at Daytona this year in the Truck Series. He\u2019s set to run a part-time ARCA schedule in 2026 with Rette Jones Racing.<\/p>\n

Now he\u2019s got the opportunity with RCR. It\u2019s a big one. Not everyone is sure he\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrash at the Rockingham truck test. Crash Lap 5 of your only truck start. Good enough for me. Approved,\u201d Kraft wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t blame Cleetus one bit. We\u2019d all jump at the chance to just show up and get approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019ll be on Cleetus McFarland to prove he can play the part. It won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News broke Wednesday that Cleetus McFarland will race part-time in the NASCAR O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series. He will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-515531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}