Last weekend, Cleetus McFarland made his debut in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, garnering plenty of attention along the way. Mark Martin, always tuning in to watch some racing action, took note of the YouTuber’s performance.
Cleetus McFarland qualified P35 and finished P32 while a handful of laps down. He spun out about four times and had a pit road penalty. Rockingham Speedway is a tough place to make your series debut, and McFarland was thrown into the deep end in the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevy.
On Monday, the “Door Bumper Clear” podcast, Mark Martin was the guest. He gave an honest evaluation of Cleetus’ debut race in the O’Reilly Series.
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“The best thing about Cleetus is interviews,” Martin said the podcast. “At least he’s coming out and saying, ‘Oh, this is way harder than I thought.’ You know, and all that. I mean, he’s fantastic, that’s all fantastic. As far as the race goes, he didn’t exceed my expectations. I expected him to run about like he ran. He had a lot of assets going into that. You know, with the test and all the people that were surrounding him and helping him.
“I said on social media yesterday, ‘Yeah, this place is a lot harder than Daytona, eh?’ And it is. Dude, you don’t have any idea what it takes to run in the middle or the latter part of the pack at Rockingham. So, it was a tremendous challenge. He still got over his skiis multiple times, but his driving talent saved it. Many other drivers would have wiped that car out in some of those slides and events that he had. So, I give him credit for that. I think he can drive, he’s just gotta learn to drive these cars on these tracks.”
A driver like Martin isn’t going to sugarcoat things. He gave Cleetus props on his ability to save his car while spinning. But the reality is, he had multiple incidents and a pit road violation. There are a lot of fine details that McFarland has yet to master.
Cleetus McFarland is planning on racing again at Talladega in a few weeks. That is if NASCAR approves him to run that race. There is a chance that the content creator will have to suit up for Kansas Speedway before he’s given the thumbs-up for the high banks of Talladega.
While at Rockingham, Cleetus also competed in the ARCA East race, finishing P4. So, maybe a little more development in ARCA would be beneficial.