{"id":950200,"date":"2026-10-29T04:18:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950200\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T04:18:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T04:18:24","slug":"former-youtuber-cleetus-mcfarland-will-race-full-time-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950200\/","title":{"rendered":"Former YouTuber Cleetus McFarland will race full time in"},"content":{"rendered":"

WELCOME, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Social media influencer Garrett Mitchell \u2014 better known as YouTuber \u201c Cleetus McFarland<\/a> \u201d \u2014 will race full time in the ARCA stock car series next year for Richard Childress Racing.<\/p>\n

McFarland will race the No. 33 Chevrolet in RCR’s return to ARCA and be paired with crew chief Robert Strmiska. <\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I got behind the wheel with RCR, I\u2019ve wanted more,” McFarland said. “The goal has always been to become the best race car driver I can be, and running the full ARCA Menards Series schedule gives me that opportunity. Richard Childress and everyone at RCR believes in me, and having the support of a legendary team gives me a ton of confidence to focus on learning everything I can about stock car racing. I\u2019m ready to get after it every week.\u201d<\/p>\n

McFarland has more than 4.8 million subscribers on his YouTube channel and the racing enthusiast soon parlayed his popularity into a blossoming racing career.<\/p>\n

He made two starts this season in NASCAR’s second-tier developmental series and three more in the Truck Series. McFarland has one top-five finish in four ARCA races this season. He made his Truck Series debut in February at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n

NASCAR in 2018 acquired the ARCA series, a launching pad for drivers looking to reach stock car racing\u2019s top level.<\/p>\n

McFarland will now compete in 2027 for the ARCA championship. He made four ARCA starts in 2025, beginning with the season opener at Daytona. He crashed 17 laps into that one \u2014 and made headlines for saying he felt like \u201cthe best racer there ever was\u201d for some of his driving moves.<\/p>\n

\u201cCleetus has an undeniable passion for racing and a work ethic that has impressed everyone at our organization,\u201d said RCR president Mike Verlander. \u201cCleetus is a perfect fit for RCR. He\u2019s earned this opportunity, and we\u2019re looking forward to seeing what he can accomplish over the course of a full season.”<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WELCOME, N.C. (AP) \u2014 Social media influencer Garrett Mitchell \u2014 better known as YouTuber \u201c Cleetus McFarland \u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-950200","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\/950200","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=950200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}