Cleetus McFarland's Nitrocross debut nixed due to inexperience

YouTube star Cleetus McFarland has had his debut in Nitrocross’ Group E category curtailed after series organizers deemed him too inexperienced to compete.

McFarland, real name Garrett Mitchell, was due to drive Travis Pastrana’s Vermont SportsCar entry on the Saturday of the double-header event at Utah Motorsports Campus, with Pastrana set to take over McFarland’s entry in the Side-by-Side class.

“Well crap. On Friday night before I even got to drive the Group E rallycross car the Nitrocross higher ups decided I can no longer compete this weekend,” McFarland said on social media. “Some of the teams had concerns with me jumping into this series without any experience in the car and the Nitro execs reversed their decision to skip some steps and let me compete.

“So I won’t get to embarrass myself in my rallycross debut this weekend. Maybe another time.

“Not gonna complain, life is good. I will still be ripping a CanAm X3 in the SxS class both days. Travis is also still letting me do a couple solo laps in the [Group E] car but nothing on track with the other racers, so at least I’ll have a cool video rippin’ the car for you guys. Let’s rip it today!”

Pastrana will instead compete in both Group E and SxS on Saturday. He won the first part of the Group E double-header weekend on Friday night after fending off Kevin Eriksson.

Responding to the decision, Pastrana added: “My buddy Cleetus McFarland showed up this weekend ready and willing to trade paint with the best Nitrocross drivers on the planet, but through a series of disappointing decisions made by Nitrocross to follow the rules of qualification for a new driver to the series after multiple teams posted concerns of having too much unrestricted freedom on the track, he was deemed ineligible to compete.

“We were able to give Cleetus a test in the car and he will be racing alongside myself today in the CanAm class in the Top Liner machines tonight. I will jump back in the Vermont SportsCar space ship today to try and get to the top of the podium 2 nights in a row.

“Sorry to the fans. Cleetus will be back after he jumps through a few hoops to prove himself.”

Topics

cleetus mcfarland

Nitrocross

Dominik Wilde

Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?

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