This is what everyone said they wanted Garrett Mitchell dba Cleetus McFarland to do, compete on short tracks to improve his racecraft, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is fine with the mistakes he’s going to make there at first.
McFarland is pursuing a start in the Daytona 500 but will first need to climb the ranks, currently approved to compete in all Truck Series track types but only O’Reilly Series short tracks, having shown some development shortcomings in the latter.
That’s why the likes of Earnhardt and team owner Mark Rette nudged Cleetus to buy a straight rail Late Model to continue working on his skills. That journey began last week in the prestigious Battle at Berlin 250 and the inaugural Cleetus McFarland Late Model Series event, both held at Berlin Raceway in Marne, Michigan.
McFarland was poised to complete the Battle at Berlin until he lost control with 14 to go, spinning down into the path of Keith Herp, ending the race for both drivers. Local and regional champion Evan Shotko also flipped him off while placing him a lap down.
McFarland reflected on his performance and was down on himself afterwards.
“Well I just suck, you know?,” McFarland stated. “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.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was more optimistic, stating on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, the only way to learn to drive race cars is by driving them.
“Cleetus is trying to drive race cars,” Earnhardt said on the show. “He had that O’Reilly start with (Richard Childress Racing), he ran some ARCA races, he did pretty good in the 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 further voiced his displeasure with how critical some viewers were after McFarland’s performance given his inexperience and willingness to perfect his race craft.
“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? The guy is doing what you told him to do. Going and running a short track, and yeah he wrecked. So fucking 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 nights 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.
Earnhardt saw a lot of what he wanted to from Cleetus in his debut appearance.
“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.”
