Garrett Mitchell, better known as Cleetus McFarland, was running just outside the top 10 in Friday’s (Feb. 13) Fresh From Florida 250 at Daytona International Speedway when he got loose out of turn 4 and spun toward the inside wall on lap 6.
McFarland, a popular personality with more than 4.6 million subscribers on YouTube, was making his highly anticipated NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at Daytona after running a partial schedule in the ARCA Menards Series last season.
Driving for Niece Motorsports, McFarland qualified 12th on Friday afternoon and was racing in the middle of the pack when he crashed out of the race.
“100% my fault,” McFarland said. “Terrible mistake.
“Man, it’s impressive those guys can run three wide for that long. And when that (truck) stepped out, I mean, you just have a couple of feet on either side and I just didn’t have the ability to gather it up, and so I wrecked myself.”
McFarland still has one more Daytona race on his schedule, returning to the track for ARCA’s season-opening General Tire 200 on Saturday (Feb. 14). He’ll start fifth in that event.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf
Shocked, SHOCKED the YouTube personality whose whole persona is doing dumb (but entertaining) things in vehicles ran out of talent, and crashed by himself on lap 6.
Also incredibly stupid of Fox to use his “stage name” rather than use his real name. I suppose we’ll have “Shrub”, “Watermelon Man”, and “Bowman The Showman” on the ticker Sunday.
Will say I was impressed with Mitchell’s post-crash interview. No idea if that’s his real personality, but he took a humble perspective, which was appropriate.
I was wondering that too about using Cleetus instead of his real name. My guess is Fox wants his followers to recognize him easier since he has so many. Doesn’t make it any less professional though.