Did You Notice? … The future of NASCAR could lie in the hands of Cleetus McFarland and Squirrel McNutt?
Not a sentence I ever thought I’d write during my lifetime, that’s for sure.
The YouTube sensation McFarland, less commonly known by his real name Garrett Mitchell, is making his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Rockingham Speedway this Saturday (April 4). One of his sidekicks, McNutt, will be running the ARCA race in preparation for a jump to the high speeds of 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway later this month.
You read that right: Cleetus and Squirrel. Just their names alone leave the cast of Talladega Nights itching for a sequel. The duo’s antics on YouTube have been built on the backs of McFarland buying an old, abandoned racetrack named DeSoto Speedway, a three-eighths mile oval, in Bradenton, Florida back in 2020. It becomes the backdrop for their wild, hilarious clips and fun with cars that have woken up an entire generation’s worth of (mostly younger) fans to the excitement of racing.
So as Cleetus heads to Rockingham, watching every step of the way will be that YouTube audience of 4.67 million YouTube subscribers. McNutt himself has 315,000 followers on Instagram; Sunday’s (March 29) Martinsville Speedway winner Chase Elliott, the sport’s longtime Most Popular Driver, has a shade over 500,000.
No question, the duo has a devoted following that dwarfs virtually any of the viewership we’ve seen out of auto racing this season.
2026 Racing TV Viewership
| Race | Series | Viewership |
| 2026 Daytona 500 | NASCAR Cup | 7.489 Million |
| Cleetus McFarland | YouTube Channel | 4.67 Million |
| 2026 Martinsville | NASCAR Cup | 2.394 Million |
| 2026 Daytona | NASCAR O’Reilly | 1.812 Million |
| 2026 St. Petersburg | IndyCar | 1.418 Million |
| 2026 Daytona | NASCAR Trucks | 1.387 Million |
| 2026 Australian Grand Prix | Formula 1 | 1.1 Million* |
| 2026 Daytona | ARCA | 928,000 |
* – Apple claims an audience matching or better than this 2025 ESPN total but has released no hard data to prove it
With that type of draw, you can see why NASCAR’s jumping through hoops to get them on the racetrack. It only took a half-dozen starts in ARCA and the Craftsman Truck Series, totaling less than 500 laps completed, for Cleetus to find himself holding an O’Reilly Series license for one-mile tracks or less.
You can debate the fairness of their rise. But these guys are here, working hard to be respectful in the garage area and better themselves. Longtime NASCAR Cup driver’s Greg Biffle’s mentorship, in particular, of McFarland has been well documented, a close bond that ended in tragedy when Biffle and his family were killed in a December plane crash.
How far can they get? It’s clear McFarland’s going to wind up running at least one Cup Series race before this adventure is over; not tomorrow, not next month, but sometime within the next year or two. For McNutt, who was seven laps down in his ARCA East debut running for one of the sport’s underfunded teams, it’s too early to tell.
Are they going to wind up in victory lane? Not anytime soon. Just finishing at Rockingham would be good for both of them, as McFarland ran just five laps in his Truck debut before wrecking back in February. The learning curve is steep for those without years of racing experience and intel behind them.
But, in many ways, Cleetus and Squirrel (whose real name is George Siciliano) have already won. Besides going out of their way to honor the fallen Biffle, they’ve given NASCAR a roadmap on how to rebuild years of sagging popularity. The answer is staring everyone right in the face the second either one gets in front of a camera. Check out these examples below.
You don’t have to watch much or even know about cars to connect with these guys’ brand of humor, fun, and the most important word NASCAR’s been craving, authenticity. Both come across as normal, blue-collar southern guys who just happen to drive a car for fun on the weekends. Their excitement is contagious; you listen to them and you want to be doing what they’re doing.
Missing are the corporate platitudes, the droning on of “I’d like to thank ABC Supply Co. and five associate sponsors” while sounding like a stuffy Vice President of Marketing in a conference room. There’s no Fortune 500 company, at least not yet, responsible for building up McFarland’s life and career. Instead? He’s simply himself: a fun-loving, heart-on-his-sleeve personality that’s a reminder sports are a form of entertainment, after all.
It’s that type of genuineness NASCAR needs to turn the page in a post-Dale Earnhardt, wacky playoff system world. It used to be that the cars could sell themselves; people were fans of the manufacturers and the horsepower that came to the track. But the Next Gen chassis, designed to be a spec setup that brings down costs for car owners, limits the ability to even tell a Ford, Chevy or Toyota apart. They’re nowhere close to what you’d drive to and from your office each day.
That puts the pressure on the other part of NASCAR’s equation: the drivers themselves. Fans have always been attracted to personalities, from Richard Petty to Earnhardt to Jeff Gordon to Kyle Busch. The drama of drivers battling with each other, on and off the track, is what filled the stands from the superspeedways of Daytona to the bullrings like Bristol every week. There’s a reason NASCAR was and has been often compared to professional wrestling. The difference was stock car racing was and remains unscripted.
It just doesn’t feel that way to fans anymore. From the era of Jimmie Johnson winning his titles, funny and fascinating in private only to turn flat when the cameras turned on, NASCAR learned how to be bland. The price this sport paid for big money appears to be the ability for anyone to be themselves.
Just ask Ross Chastain. Once the sport’s bad boy, runner-up in the championship and capable of making Mario Kart moves, we’re nearly three years removed from an aggressive Darlington Raceway wreck with Kyle Larson. After that race, Larson’s owner Rick Hendrick commented, “You just don’t run people up in the fence or just — he’s not going to — he’s going to make a lot of enemies. It’s hard to win a championship when you’ve got a lot of paybacks out there.”
Chastain has been a different man in front of the press ever since. Less combative, more contemplative before speaking and … dare I say?
More corporate.
Fans don’t watch on Sundays to hear regurgitated sponsor pitches from a boardroom. They watch for fender-rubbing, high-quality, side-by-side racing that translates into personalities they want to follow when the checkered flag falls. If you turn the whole show into a million-dollar marketing commercial, at some point it becomes the same ad you no longer bother watching.
Cleetus and Squirrel are a connection to NASCAR’s roots, the good part they don’t need to wash away. It’s the foundation this sport needs to build from in order to become nationally relevant again.
Let this duo show them the way.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off …
- Worried that NASCAR’s return to a 10-race Chase for the Championship will make winning less important? The sport’s four Cup winners in the first seven races are currently 1-2-3-4 in the standings: Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin and Elliott.
- Seven races in and rookie Connor Zilisch is sitting 33rd in points, sitting behind Ty Dillon and Riley Herbst without a single lap led. Rookie seasons are a time of learning and transition. That said, last year’s O’Reilly Series phenom is really struggling to perform up to expectations.
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 50+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.
I don’t mind the Corporate Stuff unless if we behaved like Rusty Wallace.
Old Nascar fan here , who dropped out of watching because of all the noise from young drivers over the past 10 years , but now i’m back watching because of Cleetus , because I have been watching his youtube channel and watching his entertainment factor and his growth as a driver in all factions of racing .He’s honest colorful and means well ,plus he’s a real smart man ,who flies Planes helicopters ,drives Promod Drag cars .etc etc etc. And gives back to the communities in the form of disaster relief . Grassroots drivers are what Nascar needs and the Fans ,who knows how far he can go .
Wow, your bar must be set pretty low if your all revved up over Cletus, goofball…. I could care less if he could fly a 747.. can he drive a real race car at 175 mph?? Not shown that yet… just a inter net freak show lowering the standards for real race drivers.
“If you turn the whole show into a million-dollar marketing commercial, at some point it becomes the same ad you no longer bother watching.”
Spot on.
NASCAR was best when NASCAR was poor. Because all anyone had back then was a personality and a dream.
amen
Back then drivers got a ride due to talent. They also got paid a percentage of what the car brought in. If drivers got paid that way again instead of an obscene salary they might be more inclined to actually “race” when they realize the car in front is taking money out of their pocket that their wives and/or girlfriends have already spent.
yessir! as a newer fan I would love to see someone like hocevar rise to the top because it would be great for the sport, someone who just wants to win
it will be interesting to see how cleetus races this weekend. i’m sure he’s doing great for ticket sales at rockingham. hopefully mother nature cooperates.
cleetus will have a sponsor to thank, so we’ll see how he does on the corporate pr spot. hopefully this is a win/win for ty dillon and rcr.
The safety of other drivers and the cost to repair destroyed cars is more important than giving a “cool guy” the chance to tear it up. Making fun of the Southern roots of racing disgusts me. Though I’d rather see McFarland in the #54 Monster car than Ty Gibbs, who waits for his dinner on golden platters, or Austin Dillon, who has made the #3 a perennial back marker since he began driving, this is NOT the way NASCAR should go. Someone above said it was “better when it was poorer.” I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Drivers in the 70s were winning 1 million+ a year in race winnings. No, NASCAR was better before the rise of the smartphone and youth’s addiction to staring at a screen…it makes business sense that SPONSORS are going to pay for ADVERTISEMENT where the 18-35 demographic is looking at. So that’s strike 1. Strike 2, is a dying car culture. Many states no longer allow you have a FULL license at 16, so what’s the rite of passage now for high-school kids……..an unfiltered Instagram account? Give me a break. Strike 3. To work on a car now, you have to have a doctorate, so, another way that “COMPUTERS” have destroyed society. So now, NASCAR has progressed but to really capture the attention of the computer/internet addicted society, you have to make the car into something like that. For old school fans like myself, we need to stop stage racing, STOP SHORTENING races, stop running a stage break the entire length of a commercial break (Martinsville, they ran off 11 laps during one commercial break in the OReilly Series), etc. But, also, if people would stop coming online SPREADING NEGATIVITY, it might get more popular to. All I read online are negative, negative, negative, negative comments. More passing than ever, more leaders than ever, smaller margins than ever. Cautions average the same. What more can you ask for? NASCAR Isn’t going to suddenly break out the 80s and 90s cars again. Get over it. Say something good.
If “Cleetus McFarland” and “Squirrel McNutt” have to race with made-up names which, by the way, denigrate the supposed community they cater to and from which they claim to spring, rather than their legal names, as other athletes do, how is that “authentic?” Are the interview videos “authentic?” Or is there somebody else purely seeking views for themselves when the cameras are off, the actual “authentic” individuals?
Yes, NASCAR (and other sports, as well) have gotten over-commercialized, but allowing “views” to be the primary decision-making point of approving a competitor in what is still a very dangerous endeavor and proposes to be a world-class competition, is not the “authentic” way to get more eyes on this sport.
I would argue that this is actually over-commercialiazion to the extreme. A detriment to the authentic competition and truly the safety of the competitors and other participants. The crashes, injuries and yes, deaths that can stem from this folly, are truly “authentic.”
Spot on. Can you imagine the NFL allowing someone to play because “they really like football”, and “they play a lot of football on their YouTube channel”? And let them insist on being called by a cliche name that’s outright making fun of the average fan of the sport?
I don’t really care if either races in ARCA, as that’s where young drivers learn to be competitive, and wealthy older drivers can live out their dream. To race in ARCA is to know you must keep your head on a swivel for idiocy by other drivers.
RCR bringing the clown show to O’Reilly is ridiculous, and NASCAR should be ashamed for allowing it to happen. Mitchell was predictably average in ARCA, despite good equipment, and made the predictably stupid mistakes someone with no experience would make. In his only truck race, he SPUN OUT BY HIMSELF AT DAYTONA, after just six laps. Still can’t wrap my head around that one. Just dumb luck nobody else was involved before he nearly knocked down the inside wall.
NASCAR has a huge credibility problem, and letting guys named “Cleetus” and “Squirrel” race is not going to help the situation. If either shocks and does well, it means Matt Crafton was right, and the modern cars are so easy to drive a monkey could do it. No need to spend years learning and earning your stripes, as driver skill and experience don’t really matter.
If they do what’s expected and fail miserably, the question will deservedly be raised as to why any random Joe can jump into a high level series, and whether that series is really all that high level after all.
To your point Mr. Winchester, I sincerely hope nobody’s season gets derailed by the circus, and even more so I hope no one gets hurt by someone with no relevant experience (oh, I forgot…six laps in the truck series before running out of talent) hopping out on the track with people who are racing to pay their bills.
For 30 years one of the major objectives of NASCAR has been to prove they’re a professional sport, and as such deserve to be given the same respect as the stick and ball sports. Yet year after year they go out of their way to prove they’re not. Years of the Waltrip brothers 3rd grade crap, from Bogity, bogity bogity to “Mikey’s” dumping a taco on Hamblin’s car, there was never anything professional about either of them and neither of them should ever have been the faces of NASCAR. The half baked Chase, allowing a driver to break watermelons on track, and stopping a Truck race early at a track with lights because of a later TV show (can anyone ever imagine the NFL doing that?) are just some of things that continue to signal to the world that NASCAR is still an amatuer sport.
Now we have two internet fools in line to be the next stars of NASCAR, and apparently both NASCAR and at least some in the media (like this writer) think it’s a good thing to continue to dumb down the sport. It’s one thing to be able to laugh at yourself, it’s another to intentionally make yourself a laughing stock. Cup announcers constantly refer to Cup drivers as the best in the world. While an easily disputed claim to start with, the inclusion of “Cleetus” as a possible Cup driver for RCR at some point should not only prove that Cup drivers are far from the best in the world, but also that any clown with a YouTube channel can drive a Cup car.
Another writer complained about the negativity directed toward NASCAR. Maybe it’s time NASCAR stopped making it so easy to have a negative attitude about them?
I could not agree more!
There was the “Heidi” game which has never been repeated!
Except it was NBC that switched from the game to Heidi, not the NFL. And unlike NASCAR, the NFL continued to play the game. NBC had decided to delay the movie but there was a problem communicating this to the control room. Also, only the Eastern Time Zones were affected, the game remained on in other time zones where the movie was starting later.
At the Daytona truck race it was NASCAR who decided to end the race early, not the network. NASCAR could have told the network tough, they could have switched the race from Fox to FS1 or FS2 (admittedly something done all too often to races already, but still better than what they did), or NASCAR could have continued the race till the end without TV coverage. At least then the fans who bought race tickets would have seen the whole race.
How many NFL games since the Heidi game have not been telecast in their entirety? Has it happened only to NA$CAR? Will FOX do it to IndyCar telecasts?
“Cleetus and Squirrel” — the fake names say it all.
Seriously, just “No!”
“Squirrel” should be the nickname of NA$CAR’s Brain Trust! Squirrel 1, Squirrel 2, Squirrel 3…….Squirrel 197, Squirrel 198. I know! Why stop there?