From Connor Zilisch to Corey Heim, plenty of prospects have climbed the rungs of NASCAR the traditional and arduous way. It involves proving one’s mettle and moving from Go-Karts to Late Models, then ARCA, Truck, Xfinity, and finally the Cup Series. But exceptions are there, who have bypassed the hierarchy.
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Some have taken a sharper leap, jumping straight from Truck to Cup like Carson Hocevar. Others, such as William Byron, arrived by a non-traditional route, through video games. Then there is Cleetus McFarland, who steered in from an entirely different lane: YouTube.
However, Dale Earnhardt Jr. does not see a problem with that at all, even though this shortcut is rare for a typical driver. But McFarland’s enthusiasm for racing and the absence of major financial hurdles let him start in NASCAR directly with ARCA.
“He’s pretty smart. But he may continue to run ARCA, whatever he does,” said Dale Jr., weighing McFarland’s approach.
“There are no rules to this… You got a guy coming in and he tried to race ARCA, and I watched his in-car at Bristol, and I see a lot of the things that he doesn’t know, but as the race went on, he adapted and he learned and he got better. And he started to understand where and how to push the car. And so a ton of this stuff is completely foreign to him,” he added.
McFarland started as a YouTuber in 2009 and turned a bodyless Chevrolet Corvette C5 with an exo-cage into a calling card named Leroy. After building an audience as a content creator and racing enthusiast, he followed with a purpose-built race car from a Chevrolet El Camino known as Mullet.
He then purchased the abandoned Desoto Speedway, a 3/8-mile Asphalt Oval and Figure 8 Track in Manatee County, Florida, renaming the facility to Freedom Factory. In 2022, Lawrence Garrett Mitchell, known as McFarland, made his debut in Stadium Super Trucks at Long Beach, California, racing the No. 1776 truck. By year’s end, he also dipped into Drag Racing.
In 2025, Mitchell a.k.a McFarland participated in the pre-season test for the ARCA Menards Series at Daytona International Speedway, driving the No. 30 Ford for Rette Jones Racing as Garrett Mitchell. He went on to compete in three more ARCA races.
Dale Jr. framed McFarland’s choice of entry into racing as unconventional but hardly unprecedented. “But it’s not out of the question for a guy his age to say, ‘Hey, I want to go race, and that’s where I’m going to start. I’m going to go right into an ARCA car,” he said.
“I’m not going to run a street stock or a mini stock or a late model or anything like that. I’m going right to ARCA and I’m going right to Daytona…’ That is not a new thing,” said Junior, who argued that the sport has seen drivers with little or no experience attempt to run or qualify for these races, often with detrimental results.
Even so, McFarland wants to take the swing, and Dale Jr. doesn’t see it as a problem. There is a more traditional route to becoming a great race car driver, but this is the path he prefers, cutting some corners. Junior believes that it is fine and hopes McFarland races more ARCA. If he lands his truck deal, that is also great, as Junior would like to see him remain part of NASCAR.
The ladder still stands for the usual prospects, while the sport also keeps space for those who find a side door. McFarland has chosen his entry. He has a platform, a track, and a growing résumé that spans Stadium Super Trucks, Drag Racing, and ARCA at Daytona.
