By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
The 2025 NASCAR season has seen the entrance of arguably the most influential driver from the social media realm turn laps on a racetrack in Cleetus McFarland.
The YouTuber has more than 4.2 million subscribers and has amassed nearly 1.8 billion views since starting his channel in 2009.
His real name is Garrett Mitchell, but don’t be embarrassed if you’re learning this now. His online persona of “Cleetus” is used in various articles, on his race suit and even on the side of his No. Rette Jones Racing 30 Ford in the ARCA Racing Series.
He’s making his second career ARCA start Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway. His first was at Daytona in February where he crashed out after 19 laps.
But outside the confines of the racing surface — a.k.a Garrett Mitchell — the 30-year-old McFarland brings a lot of eyeballs to the sport of American stock car racing.
And though he’s in the developmental phase of learning to draft a heavy beast at 180 mph, he has advice of his own to give to the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series:
Get your iPhones out.
McFarland sees a lot of potential in Cup drivers showcasing their day-to-day lives on YouTube, where the bulk of his influence lies.
“I think a lot of drivers who are in Cup, they have been around for a while and social media didn’t really blow up when they were getting into it,” McFarland said Saturday at Talladega. “I do see a lot of drivers who are doing a really good job on social media and some that you don’t see much from.”
One of those drivers is Daniel Suarez, the Trackhouse Racing driver who began uploading YouTube vlogs of his race weekends this February.
McFarland recognizes Cup sophomore Carson Hocevar as a driver who’s “doing the most” at the moment.
“I do feel like there is a major lack of YouTube opportunity in the garages,” he said. “If I was a Cup guy, I personally would be filming all that stuff.
“We film all our videos on an iPhone. Maybe it does exist and we don’t know about it, but the same thing I do at my shop every day working on the drag cars — that can easily be done in the Cup garage. But I think there is a lot of secrecy about the car set-ups and stuff. But that can easily be avoided but like… there is so much to show.
“The audience is begging for it.”
NASCAR has put increased efforts into highlighting the sport in the digital space and beyond. With more content coming out via Tik Tok, Instagram, etc., Season 2 of “NASCAR: Full Speed” releases next month on Netflix. Earlier this year, Jeff Gordon revealed that he has spoken to actor Tom Cruise about a sequel to the famous NASCAR film “Days of Thunder.”
But more than the big budgets and high-tech cameras, McFarland believes real, raw and accessible content is what can raise Cup drivers, and the sport, for the younger generations.
“If a couple of these drivers, I don’t know who’s going to be first, start showing what’s going on in their day-to-day life — once someone picks up their iPhone and goes in the garages and is showing the day-to-day struggles.
“To me, it seems like all the Cup teams are so dialed in and so locked in. But we all know behind the scenes that they’re having some shitshow days, for lack of better words. And we would love to see it.
“Most of my videos that have done the best are on my worst days at the track. When I throw a rod out the side of the motor, people love those videos for some reason. It is hard some days posting it.
“But man, I am telling you, once one driver really throws some cool homemade-style YouTube videos up. It may exist, I just think it’s going to do really well for somebody.”