NASCAR, we need to talk.
You’ve made a lot of improvements to the sport over the offseason. Your approval process is apparently not one of those improvements.
This week Richard Childress Racing announced that Garrett Mitchell, more commonly known as Cleetus McFarland, will run a three-race schedule in a third NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series car for the team.
Anyone with eyes can see that this is a yikes on NASCAR’s part for even approving Mitchell to run as high as O’Reilly. He only has five ARCA Menards Series starts; he spun in one and later crashed completely (though neither incident was directly his fault), caused a crash in another one and did … fine in his other three starts. He also has one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start at Daytona International Speedway — in which he crashed six laps into the event.
And that’s it. That’s all the real, honest-to-God stock-car experience Mitchell has. All his other racing experience comes from drag racing and Crown Vics (and a few Stadium Super Truck races).
And yet, here he is, getting ready to tackle Rockingham Speedway in April, the same track he hit the wall at when testing for his Truck approval.
Don’t worry, it gets worse.
Mitchell’s buddy George Siciliano (known to Mitchell’s YouTube subscribers as Squirrel McNutt) is planning three ARCA races. He’ll run the ARCA Menards Series East race at Hickory Motor Speedway, and if he does well there, he’ll run a second Rette Jones Racing entry at Kansas Speedway. And if that goes well too, he’ll compete in the Talladega Superspeedway ARCA race the following week.
Even by ARCA standards, letting a guy with next to no racing experience whatsoever run Talladega after just two races (one of which is a simple East race) is a questionable decision.
For the record, both Mitchell and Siciliano seem like cool guys who you’d want to have a beer or six with. But their awesome personalities don’t excuse the lack of racing experience that they’ll have if/when they race an O’Reilly/ARCA race at Talladega.
Is NASCAR giving them the approvals to race because of the large YouTube following Mitchell has? Is that why Cody Dennison was approved to run Truck races last year? Dennison is also a YouTuber, boasting 225,000 subscribers. He only had experience running NASCAR vintage races before getting a full-time ARCA ride and eventually a part-time Truck gig.
Has that same courtesy in approvals been given to Mitch Stapleton, who makes his living on YouTube as well? Stapleton has over 150,000 more subscribers than Dennison and participated the ARCA test at Daytona in January, but so far nothing has transpired for any potential ride for him. Does he have the same approvals Mitchell or Dennison have (at least in ARCA)?
The confusion over NASCAR’s approval process doesn’t stop at YouTubers-turned-racecar drivers. The Mitchell-to-RCR announcement came just days after Myatt Snider jumped in the No. 48 NASCAR Cup Series car for Hendrick Motorsports in place of Alex Bowman at Circuit of the Americas when Bowman couldn’t continue due to illness.
It was the first time Snider ever sat in a Cup car, and it was on a complete whim. He was working the race for FOX Sports, serving as Jamie Little’s pit spotter when Hendrick VP of Competition Chad Knaus asked if Snider could finish the race for Bowman. Snider, who apparently always keeps a helmet and suit on him, happily agreed, as Hendrick seemingly did not have a predetermined driver on standby just in case, despite knowing COTA is historically a hot race.
Yes, it was an emergency situation, but how was Snider approved to run the car having never even touched a Cup car prior to COTA? Was it really because of his lone O’Reilly win at Homestead-Miami Speedway many years ago? He only ran four races last year for a below-average team, which still qualifies him more than most to take over the seat, especially just for 20 or so laps. But given how NASCAR has denied approval of other experienced drivers, Snider’s ability to be approved … well, just because … is confusing.
Mike Forde broke down the decision on the latest edition of the Hauler Talk podcast, but it still doesn’t make things clearer. Had this situation happened at even an intermediate, then Snider wouldn’t have been approved? Despite his experience? Now I’m lost.
Remember the debacle last year with Mike Wallace, who was approved and then not approved to run the Daytona 500 because he hadn’t been in a Cup car in 10 years and a NASCAR racecar in five years? But NASCAR had no problem approving Helio Castroneves for the same race, and then approving Katherine Legge for a series of O’Reilly and Cup races. To be fair to Castroneves and Legge, they at least had experience driving on ovals due to their NTT IndyCar Series experience, but the point still stands.
Wallace never even got the chance to run the Truck race that weekend for approval, which is something that NASCAR made Travis Pastrana do in 2023 in order to run the Daytona 500. No, Wallace’s approval was denied before he even had a chance to get that approval back. But why wasn’t Pastrana’s? If you ask me, I’d take the longtime NASCAR veteran over a stunt performer who never really wanted to put a stock-car career over the opportunity to run anything else with a motor.
It’s not the first time a driver with experience was denied a Cup opportunity. In 2021, Jennifer Jo Cobb, a longtime staple in the O’Reilly and Truck series, was supposed to make her Cup debut with Rick Ware Racing at Talladega but was denied by NASCAR due to … lack of experience. Just days later, Matt Mills was approved to make his Cup debut at Kansas Speedway despite considerably less experience than Cobb in just as bad, if not worse, equipment than Cobb.
What exactly got Mills approved over the infinitely more experienced Cobb isn’t clear, especially because to date, it’s Mills’ only career Cup start.
But it seems as if NASCAR (kind of) learned from these. Because despite not sitting in a NASCAR racecar in 10 years and not running a Truck Series race in 20, NASCAR had no problem approving Tony Stewart, now an NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series driver who only ran a couple of Camping World SRX Series races in that timeframe, to run the Truck race at Daytona.
But I can hear the naysayers now: What about Frankie Muniz? Or what about NASCAR’s long-standing tradition of letting common men do uncommon things? Remember Marty Robbins?
I hear you. First of all, this isn’t the 1970s anymore. Robbins’ sporadic pop-ups happened when NASCAR as a whole wasn’t nearly as regulated as it is now. In an era when safety is the top priority in a car that is incredibly hard to handle, and not a car taken off a dealership showroom floor like the old days, it should be harder for those common men to get a chance to do uncommon things.
As for Muniz, he hasn’t been openly trying to rush his way into a Daytona 500 ride like it’s obvious that Mitchell is trying to do. Spin it however you want, it’s clear that Mitchell has an endgame to run the 500 as soon as possible. If his goal was to make a career out of stock-car racing, he’d be running a full-time ARCA or Truck season this year and working on his craft (though to his credit, he did say he was buying late models to run places so he could get more seat time, so this argument is one I’d love to be proven wrong on, but right now, I just don’t see it).
Muniz seems quite content with where he’s at. He didn’t even make a Truck start until after his full-time ARCA season in 2023. He made a few appearances in 2024 and eventually got a full-time ride in 2025, a ride he’s kept into this season. Dennison is a similar case, because at least he has that full season of ARCA competition under his belt. If he wants to run more Truck races, it doesn’t feel as … rushed as Mitchell.
Fortunately, NASCAR does have some sense, as Mitchell did say he has to run well at Rockingham in order to gain approval to run Daytona and Talladega for RCR. Meaning that if he crashes out at Rockingham, he may not be given the green light. But it seems that NASCAR never gave that consideration to Natalie Decker, who sped into a wreck at Daytona over 15 seconds after the wreck ended, plowed into a destroyed Sam Mayer, who had no brakes and no good vision, and then tried to blame her running into Mayer on him.
To be fair, Decker had nothing short of a PR nightmare during Daytona weekend, for various reasons. Either way, did NASCAR really not take even a second look at allowing her to run another superspeedway later this season?
Nothing said above is meant to bring anyone down or raise anyone up. I don’t want to see Mitchell not be approved, and I’m not saying that Castroneves or Decker shouldn’t have been approved or that Stapleton or Cobb should be, etc. I say this because NASCAR’s approval system is so inconsistent that no one knows where the bar is. If a guy can have five ARCA starts and one brief race in a truck and get approval for O’Reilly races, then there’s no way a guy like Wallace with a plethora of experience shouldn’t have been approved for the 500.
To be clear, none of the issues above are the fault of the drivers. It’s 100% on NASCAR for creating an approval system that seems designed more to appeal to good PR than it is to determine who is credibly capable of running a NASCAR stock car/truck.
Just a little consistency is all that’s needed. Otherwise, it feels like the Wild West out here.
OK, rant over. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go run a Truck race — because, apparently you can just do that at this point. Who’s with me?
ok so the one thing i see at issue is “the nascar approval system”….just like the rule book….it’s depends on who you are and who your owner and sponsor are and how much of a financial hit nascar will take if they rule one particular way. nascar needs fans to carry the sport. mitchell has a lot of fans, so it seems simple to me….more fans = more money for nascar.
Marty Robbins ran 35 real races and had 1 top five and 6 top tens. He could drive but made more money as a REALLY good singer/song writer. He doesn’t belong in this group.
Nothing against Garrett Mitchell but this is a dangerous marketing ploy by nascar and Richaed Childress. I watched the Cleetus McFarland episode where nascar cleared him to run Daytona, it was a joke, anyone could have passed that “test”. I hope this ploy doesn’t injure or kill someone, but nascar doesn’t care about deaths or injuries, if they did they would stop bump drafting and blocking and stop or find a way to make racing safer at Daytona and Talladega.
Anthony, let me know when you get your ride. I like your odds better than most of these personalities, simply because you understand what’s expected.
The answer seems simple. NASCAR needs to develop a licensing system akin to what F1 uses, wherein you must complete certain races in a feeder series, or have specific results in series like IndyCar before receiving the required Super License to compete in F1. It’s mostly black and white. Yes, there are F1 drivers who basically buy their seat. But they don’t get to run without meeting the minimum criteria.
But, the reason this is unlikely to happen is also simple. NASCAR feels they need the extra viewers these personalities bring to the party. Also, for whatever reason, NASCAR seems unconcerned with the credibility of the sport.
Just for giggles, some NASCAR licensing scenarios. This is off the top of my head, so I’m sure some tweaks would be needed somewhere in there:
ARCA: Not much. Run some laps with officials monitoring to give approval, pass a physical and drug test. ARCA is NASCAR’s equivalent of single A baseball.
Trucks: One full season in ARCA, or at least two ARCA wins, with one win being on a 1.5 mile or larger oval. Truck officials have veto power, as one theoretically could be a weapon on track, yet still run the whole season.
O’Reilly: Same as trucks, just using truck series participation as the criteria.
Cup: Same as O’Reilly, just using O’Reilly participation as the criteria.
There could be exemptions for drivers from other series (F1, Indycar, Aussie Supercars, IMSA, etc.), but I’d think those exemptions would only be good enough to skip ARCA and trucks, and only if the driver finished above a certain level in the series standings where they previously drove. If you want to run Cup, earn it via wins or a season in O’Reilly.
Agree with all of your well researched comments Long gone are the days of owners with sponsorship searching for talent In today’s world the driver has to bring the money to the table or must be connected in some way Perfect example Ty Dillion recommended this to RCR and he should have been out of racing yrs back