NASCAR denies approval for Cleetus McFarland to run superspeedways in O'Reilly Series

YouTuber Cleetus McFarland is not yet approved to run superspeedway races in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, the sanctioning body confirmed Tuesday.

“We’re all huge Cleetus fans,” NASCAR EVP and chief racing development officer John Probst said on Hauler Talk, the official NASCAR podcast.

“We all watch his videos and are certainly very appreciative of everything he’s done in our sport, and will continue to do in our sport. He is approved right now for O’Reilly Series short tracks, which means he’s good for all of ARCA, all of truck, and then O’Reilly up through the short tracks. We’d like to see more out of Cleetus in the short tracks. So we’re not saying no, but there is more that we would like to see out of Cleetus before we would approve him for Talladega.”

McFarland was set to enter the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Talladega Superspeedway (April 25) with Richard Childress Racing. It was going to be his second start with the team after running at Rockingham Speedway last weekend.

In the No. 33 Chevrolet on Saturday, McFarland qualified 35th and finished 32nd. He was six laps down to the leaders and brought out the final caution when he spun off Turn 4. McFarland also had other incidents throughout the day.

Rockingham was his series debut. In February, McFarland made his NASCAR debut by running the Craftsman Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway. In that event, McFarland qualified 12th and finished 37th after crashing by himself off Turn 4 on lap six.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted you to hear it from me first that I have been denied by NASCAR to run Talladega in my O’Reilly car,” McFarland said in a video posted on his Facebook page.

“I made my O’Reilly debut last Saturday with hopes of getting approval for Talladega, but they did not see enough. Granted, it was a pretty hectic race. I tried to pass someone three wide on the third lap, spun out, spun out a few times, didn’t crash or crash anybody, but still, it was pretty hectic. Nonetheless, NASCAR has said, we’re going to see you run more ARCA and more trucks. I’m fully approved for trucks, which I have some of those in my schedule coming up, but in O’Reilly I’m still limited to short tracks.

“So, all in all, this opportunity landed about two months ago, and we came up with the idea of running a superspeedway. It’s not like we’ve been planning this for a year and I’ve only been racing NASCAR for one year. It was never my mission to go out and climb into an O’Reilly car and get to the top as fast as I can. But we figured we’d try, and we didn’t get approved. So, it is what it is. I need more windshield time regardless of whether it’s in an O’Reilly car or ARCA car or truck. More windshield time is going to help me.

"I’ve got a lot to learn, guys. So, this isn’t as much of a step back or a push down as it seems. A little bit of a kick in the nuts, but I just have to get out there in the other cars and do as much learning as possible, and then hopefully, I’ll get to run Daytona and Talladega next year.”