“I was kinda terrified that I was gonna go to prison”: Cleetus McFarland reveals the untold story of the first Crown Vic race at his private speedway

Popular YouTuber turned part-time NASCAR racer Garrett Mitchell, known more popularly as Cleetus McFarland recently shared the story of the first-ever Freedom 500 on his privately owned racetrack, Desoto Speedway. McFarland sat down for a conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the Dale Jr. Download podcast where he opened up about how he was terrified that he was going to get arrested for hosting a Crown Vic race at Desoto.

Cleetus McFarland has a knack for buying massive abandoned properties and turning them into a playground for growing his entertainment business on YouTube. In 2023, he bought an abandoned private airport in Florida. Three years prior to that, in 2020, he bought the Desoto Speedway in Manatee County, Florida. He later renamed the track to Freedom 500 where he hosts all sorts of racing events and streams it on his YouTube channel.

The track is a 1/3 mile oval contained within a figure-eight asphalt track that he bought for $2.2 million. Discussing his purchase with Dale Jr., Cleetus explained that he had to sell everything to buy the property. Additionally, when the lockdown hit due to COVID, he struggled to keep up with the payments for the track and also the salaries of his team.

However, when he came up with a plan to raise money, he also had to deal with the threat of going to prison. He explained:l

"I didn't have the money (to buy Desoto). We just like sold everything we had. And then Covid hit, you know, I am trying to make payroll for my guys. I was lying in bed at night just really stressed out. I thought what if I do a Crown Vic race, I'll buy 20 Crown Vics from the state auction and we'll do a pay-per-view. You know, I advertise, I am doing a race, the Sherriff is calling us telling us they're gonna arrest me if I had more than 10 people on the property. I was kind of terrified that I was gonna go to prison for this deal."

However, he went ahead with his plan anyway and got 75,000 people to watch the event which raised enough money to sort out the payments.

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Cleetus McFarland shares his plan to run another race in NASCAR

Cleetus McFarland recently made headlines for making his professional Stock Car racing debut at the Daytona International Speedway in the ARCA Menards Series. He had previously competed in Stadium Super Trucks and Drag Racing events in 2022 and this January, he said that he will take part in the official ARCA testing at Daytona.

He quickly got up to speed in the Stock Cars and finished the test in the top 10, a result that impressed several teams in the ARCA Series. He made his official NASCAR debut in the season-opening ARCA race, Ride The Dente 200 at Daytona but crashed out early in the race.

When Dale Jr. asked him if he planned to race on other tracks like Talladega, McFarland gave a positive response. He even shared that his team is planning some content around the Talladega event for his YouTube channel. However, he is aware that the risk on drafting-style tracks is super high and he might crash out again.

“We're going to Dega… I love the Superspeedways like there's something that attracts me to them so that's why I want to race them but they're also the ones you crash the most. ” (45:48 onwards).

Dale Jr. advised Cleetus McFarland to just go and race at Talladega and hope for a better result without thinking too much about whether he’ll finish the race or not.