{"id":589789,"date":"2026-04-08T07:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589789\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T07:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T07:47:07","slug":"nascar-explains-what-cleetus-mcfarland-must-do-after-oreilly-talladega-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/589789\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR explains what Cleetus McFarland must do after O’Reilly Talladega denial"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR<\/a> has denied an attempt by social media sensation Cleetus McFarland to race at Talladega Superspeedway on April 25. The news came down on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

McFarland will have to show NASCAR a little bit more behind the wheel before the governing body is willing to give him superspeedway approval. FOX Sports reporter Bob Pockrass provided a statement<\/a> from NASCAR EVP John Probst outlining the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is approved right now for O\u2019Reilly Series short tracks, which means he\u2019s good for all of ARCA, all of truck, and then O\u2019Reilly up through the short tracks,\u201d Probst said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to see more out of Cleetus in the short tracks. So we\u2019re not saying no, but there is more that we would like to see out of Cleetus before we would approve him for Talladega.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleetus McFarland said the news was \u201ca kick in the nuts\u201d<\/a> but he handled it relatively gracefully in a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday evening. He noted he also needs a bit more seasoning at this point, and that he didn\u2019t necessarily expect superspeedway approval right away.<\/p>\n

In any case, NASCAR was very complimentary of McFarland and his efforts to break into racing at the highest levels. The sport, it seems, would like to see him succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all huge Cleetus fans,\u201d Probst said. \u201cWe all watch his videos and are certainly very appreciative of everything he\u2019s done in our sport and will continue to do in our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleetus McFarland weighs in on decision<\/p>\n

The talented YouTube star wasn\u2019t beating himself up over NASCAR\u2019s decision when it came to Talladega. In fact, McFarland himself seemed to come close to admitting it was a long shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all this opportunity landed about two months ago,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we came up with the idea of running a superspeedway. It\u2019s not like we\u2019ve been planning this for a year, and I\u2019ve only been racing NASCAR for a year. It was never my mission to go out and climb in an O\u2019Reilly\u2019s car and get to the top as fast as I can. But we figured we\u2019d try, and it didn\u2019t get approved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleetus McFarland fully plans on getting his skills up to speed, though. Eventually, the goal is to get on those superspeedways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is what it is. I need more windshield time, regardless whether it\u2019s in an O\u2019Reilly\u2019s car, an ARCA car or a Truck,\u201d he said. \u201cMore windshield time is going to help me. I\u2019ve got a lot to learn, guys. So this isn\u2019t as much of a stepback or a pushdown as it seems. Little bit of a kick in the nuts, but I\u2019ve just got to get out there in other cars, do as much learning as possible, and then hopefully I\u2019ll get to run Daytona, Talladega next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR has denied an attempt by social media sensation Cleetus McFarland to race at Talladega Superspeedway on April…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-589789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589789","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=589789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}