Cleetus McFarland (real name Garrett Mitchell) had himself quite a busy few days last week. The popular YouTuber turned real-life racer recently invested in a new car and took it out racing at Berlin Raceway in Michigan with the goal of sharpening his race craft.
The racing day was going well for McFarland right up until it wasn't. After a solid performance to open the race, McFarland got loose with less than 20 laps left to run. He spun out and collided with Keith Herp, ending both of their nights early.
McFarland was critical of his own performance, telling the FloRacing broadcast, "Well I just suck, you know."
He continued:
"I just suck. I was fighting for my life out there, trying to just learn this thing. Got a couple of good runs and then I would overheat my right-rear, trying to overdrive it."
But Dale Earnhardt Jr. had some positive comments in McFarland's defense on the most recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download. As Earnhardt explains it, there's only one way to learn to drive race cars, and that's by driving them.
"Cleetus is trying to drive race cars," he said. "He had that O'Reilly start with RCR, he ran some ARCA races. He did pretty good in his ARCA stuff. And everybody is like, 'Dude, he needs to go run short tracks. He needs to go run short tracks and learn how to race.' So he gets a Pro Late Model, just like everybody told him to do, and he goes to a short track, and he races.
"He was doing what everybody said he should do. And he qualified like, 18th, pretty damn good first time. Berlin, all these great cars, all these tough competitors, in a big race. He's sitting there, he's not running last, he's running somewhere in the top 20, just outside the top 15, and he busted his ass. Spun out. Wrecked. Who hasn't done that? Who hasn't shit the bed in their first race?"
Earnhardt gave credit to McFarland for being out on the track, and noted that wrecks are simply a part of racing, at all levels.
"He wrecked, and another guy gets caught up in it. And there were so many people being assholes about it. It's like, what do you expect?" he said. "The guy's doing what you told him to do. Going and running a short track, and yeah he wrecked. So f***ing what? Wrecks happen at short tracks. They put his damn race car back together. They had a little 75-lapper at the same track a couple night's later, and he runs second for like 30 laps. Qualified really good and ran up towards the front. He burnt his tires up, which he's going to do, and he faded to 13th, but still."
While others wanted to harp on McFarland's struggles, Dale seems impressed with the improvement he's already shown.
"He did incredibly well. He did way better than I thought he was going to do in that car in Berlin. And you know what? He freakin' loved it. He loved it. He was texting me about how much fun it is."
It might be easy to dismiss McFarland's efforts, but as Earnhardt notes, if you want to become a better driver, you have to be out there driving. McFarland is clearly putting in the effort, even if last week's race didn't finish how he had hoped.
