RCR Questions Cleetus McFarland’s Hopes of Racing at Talladega

Richard Childress Racing has admitted that Cleetus McFarland might not get to race in the NOAPS race this month at Talladega.

RCR Questions Cleetus McFarland’s Hopes of Racing at Talladega

Cleetus McFarland (Via wired.com)

The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series on Saturday at Rockingham witnessed Cleetus McFarland making his debut in the series, driving RCR Chevy. He produced a performance that was expected of him, securing P32 finish, six laps down the leading pack, marking his first full race outside ARCA. The racer was so happy with his run, he declared he wanted to race at Talladega this month.

But Richard Childress Racing though isn’t that sure about getting the clearance from NASCAR to let the YouTuber race at Talladega. Danny Lawrence, the RCR president of O’Reilly Series operations, pointed out that though the drivers matched expectations, they might’ve not done enough to get the approval to race in the Superspeedway race.

He learned a lot in a short amount of time and I think it shows everyone what a big step this is going into the O’Reilly Series. I think he did a great job but we got to be better…Well, they’ll look at everything. They might ask us to run another race because the thing about it is we didn’t get to do a live pit stop. There were a lot of things they wanted to see happen that didn’t happen.

Danny Lawrence said after the race.

The RCR official is unsure about the future, as he doesn’t know if NASCAR would make the driver run another race, complete the task before giving him the approval. Even if McFarland miss out on this month’s race, he will still have the opportunity earn some experience and race again at in the second set of NOAPS races at Dayton as well Dega.

When he got sideways early, we automatically went into this conservation mode of just keep rolling and don’t push it too hard. So, it’s going to be close, but I would not be surprised if NASCAR didn’t want us to run another race before we got to Daytona and Talladega. Everything happens so fast there that we all want to be prepared when we do take him there.

Danny Lawrence added via motorsport.com.

Ty Dillon is impressed with Cleetus McFarland at Rockingham

The key figure behind Cleetus McFarland getting the RCR deal was Ty Dillon, the NASCAR driver and grandson of the team owner Richard Childress. After the race, the driver admitted that he was impressed with the driver and highlighted how the racer showed some real progress.

Ty Dillon (Credits: NASCAR)
Ty Dillon (Credits: NASCAR)

You did good. The thing was I could see you get excited and catch the guys in front of you, and you started launching it in there… It was good, man. You learned a lot. You’re going to go home and sleep on it and think of so many things that if you rerun it again tomorrow, you’ll be that much better.

Ty Dillon said.

Further talking the point, the veteran racer highlighted that the major goal RCR has at the moment for the driver is helping him learn his race craft. He also highlighted how McFarland showed real progress at Rockingham.

We just had to keep the perspective of teaching him as much as we can. He did a great job. The approval to be here is a wild theory, in my opinion, and he did good. This is one of the toughest tracks; things are happening really fast, and it’s just hard to make laps around here.

Ty Dillon added.

The comments from the racer are on point and shows RCR knows that with enough learning as well preparation, Cleetus McFarland can be a true asset for NASCAR. It would be interesting to see how everything is going to playout for the YouTuber turned racer in the coming days.

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