Cleetus McFarland Says It Would Be Hard To Turn Down a Full-Time O’Reilly Series Ride
What’s Happening? During the first episode of his new podcast Bald Eagles, Cleetus McFarland debated the pros and cons of whether…
Following his second-place finish in this past weekend’s ARCA Menards Series race at Talladega, YouTube star turned racer Cleetus McFarland suggested he is interested in racing in the series full-time in 2027.
This weekend felt like a major step in the right direction for Garret Mitchell, aka Cleetus McFarland, with the 31-year-old making the most of Talladega.
Not only did he team up with his friend Squirrel McNutt during the ARCA race, but Mitchell managed to score his best career finish and was one move away from bringing home the win for Rette Jones Racing.
That wasn’t the only success of this past weekend for Mitchell, as during his podcast Bald Eagles, he explained how his car’s in-house sponsorship paid off big time for his online store.
Mitchell explained that the attention brought on from the race at Talladega, including his new paint scheme for Mr. Sam’s Spray Wax, resulted in his online store selling thousands of bottles of the spray wax.
For his audience, which has a mix of racing fans and non-racing fans, Mitchell explained just how incredible this was, saying, “There are not many people who get to say they can make money while racing in NASCAR with their own sponsor.”
While Mitchell has dabbled in ARCA, making four starts in the main series last year with one more scheduled for this season, he has never expressed real interest in racing full-time.
But, it seems this return on investment is a step in that direction, as Mitchell went on to say that he is “looking” at racing full-time in ARCA in the future.
“If we can do this and pay for a full season of racing, that’s absolutely bonkers. So that’s what I’m looking forward to trying to do, is race a full season of ARCA.” — Cleetus McFarland
While Mitchell has yet to announce plans to race full-time next season, if he were to step into full-time racing, it would be a popular move for the series, which has seen increased attention from his part-time starts.
Mitchell has infrequently spoken about racing full-time, though in a past episode of Bald Eagles, he mentioned the level of commitment required to race a full schedule.
He said that given the commitment of a full-time schedule and his career as a content creator, it would be “really fun, but also, [I] just don’t know that it’s worth it.”
It is worth noting that these comments were in reference to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, where he currently races part-time with Richard Childress Racing (which Mitchell also noted in that same episode would be hard to turn down).
The OAP Series has the second-longest NASCAR schedule with 33 races from February to November. As Mitchell pointed out in this week’s episode, the ARCA season is only 20 races, a schedule he seems willing to tackle.
What’s Happening? During the first episode of his new podcast Bald Eagles, Cleetus McFarland debated the pros and cons of whether…
What do you think about this? Let us know your opinion on Discord or X. Don’t forget that you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.