{"id":170783,"date":"2026-02-27T00:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/170783\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T00:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:15:12","slug":"cleetus-mcfarland-replacement-confirmed-after-daytona-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/170783\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleetus McFarland replacement confirmed after Daytona crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"82\">Niece Motorsports are fielding just one full-time truck during the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, that being the No. 44 Chevrolet for Andres Perez de Lara following his <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/no-kyle-busch-replacement-named-nascar-team-moves-full-time-driver-01k2mxzfjt9y\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mid-season move from Spire Motorsports a year ago<\/a>. But they ran four trucks in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"85\">Travis Pastrana was behind the wheel of the No. 42 Chevrolet for his first NASCAR national series start since 2023, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was behind the wheel of the No. 45 Chevrolet for what was surprisingly his first ever Truck Series race, and it was Cleetus McFarland who made his own NASCAR national series debut in the No. 4 Chevrolet.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"88\">McFarland, the YouTube sensation whose real name is Garrett Mitchell, entered his Truck Series debut with just four races of ARCA Menards Series experience under his belt, and it took only a few laps for his night to come to an end with a wreck.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8b\">Although <a href=\"https:\/\/beyondtheflag.com\/travis-pastrana-replacement-confirmed-after-daytona-opener-01khq4h43n06\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Niece Motorsports brought back the No. 42 Chevrolet<\/a> and the No. 45 Chevrolet for Tyler Reif and Stenhouse, respectively, this past weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway (now officially EchoPark Speedway), they did not run the No. 4 truck.<\/p>\n<p>Cleetus McFarland replacement confirmed for St. Petersburg<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8h\">In the series&#8217; inaugural street race in St. Petersburg, Florida, however, they are set to do so, and they are set to do so for Ben Maier.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8k\">Maier made his Truck Series debut a year ago with Young&#8217;s Motorsports at the age of 16, finishing 18th at Lime Rock Park behind the wheel of the No. 02 Chevrolet. He added a 25th place finish at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval later in the year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8n\">The 17-year-old Chester, Maryland native won the 2025 CARS Pro Late Model Tour championship with seven top five finishes in 13 races.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8q\">Niece Motorsports also plan to run the No. 42 truck and the No. 45 truck again in St. Petersburg. Tyler Reif is set to drive the No. 42 entry for the second race in a row, and Landen Lewis is set to drive the No. 45 entry for the first time this year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8w\">The OnlyBulls Green Flag 150 is set to be shown live on Fox from the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida beginning at 12:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, February 28. Begin a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fubo.tv\/welcome?irad=343747&amp;irmp=1412332&amp;subId1=FS-2024streaming\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\">free trial of FuboTV today<\/a> and catch all of the action from the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series street race!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niece Motorsports are fielding just one full-time truck during the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, that being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-170783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}