Cleetus McFarland Grassroots Motorsports Platform,Not every racing legend starts with a factory team and a corporate sponsor. Some start with a beat-up Corvette, a camera, and an absolutely unhinged love for going fast. That’s exactly how Garrett Mitchell — better known to millions as Cleetus McFarland — built one of the most powerful independent motorsports platforms in America today.
What makes his story genuinely remarkable isn’t just the cars. It isn’t the burnouts or the record-breaking quarter-mile runs. It’s the fact that he took the raw, unpolished energy of grassroots motorsports and turned it into a full-blown media empire — complete with a racetrack, a streaming service, a merchandise brand, and a growing NASCAR career. All while staying exactly the kind of guy you’d want to grab a burger with after the race.
This is the complete story of the Cleetus McFarland grassroots motorsports platform — where it came from, how it works, and why it matters to every car enthusiast on the planet.
Who Is Cleetus McFarland? The Man Behind the Grassroots Motorsports Movement
Cleetus McFarland’s Early Life and Passion for Cars
Garrett Mitchell was born on April 5, 1995, in Omaha, Nebraska. Cars weren’t just a hobby in his household — they were practically the family business. His father, David Garrett Mitchell, ran a mobile car detailing operation and later a taxi cab business. Growing up, Garrett spent countless hours maintaining and transporting Crown Victoria taxis. Nobody knew then that those big old police interceptors would later become the centerpiece of one of his most beloved racing events.
He launched his YouTube channel on January 28, 2009 — back when filming yourself doing anything automotive was genuinely novel territory. His early content was raw and unpolished. But it had something most automotive content lacked: a real personality behind the camera.
Before going solo, Cleetus, whose real name is Lawrence Garrett Mitchell, started as the social media manager at 1320Video before taking to YouTube on his own. That experience gave him a masterclass in what automotive audiences actually want. Not corporate polish. Not scripted segments. Just real builds, real speed, and real reactions. Holley Motor Life
From YouTube to a Full-Blown Motorsports Platform
He gained traction in 2015 after creating the Cleetus persona, a comedic, patriotic character that resonated with car enthusiasts. That same year, he left 1320Video to focus on his channel, which quickly grew thanks to viral content and high-performance builds. YEN.COM.GH
The growth wasn’t accidental. He fed the algorithm with consistency but fed his audience with authenticity. Every build had stakes. Every race had drama. And every video felt like you were watching a friend chase a crazy dream rather than a polished creator executing a content strategy.
Today, Cleetus McFarland is an American automotive YouTuber, motorsports promoter, entrepreneur, and professional race car driver known for his high-energy content and extensive engagement in the grassroots race culture. That four-part description tells you everything about how far he’s come from his Nebraska roots. Wealthy Spy
What Is the Cleetus McFarland Grassroots Motorsports Platform?
Defining Grassroots Motorsports in Today’s World
Grassroots motorsports has always meant racing for the love of it. No factory budgets. No corporate teams. Just regular people building cars in their garages and taking them to the track on weekends. It’s the backbone of American car culture — the kind of racing where a $3,000 beater can beat a $30,000 purpose-built machine if the driver is good enough.
What Cleetus did was take that spirit and plug it into the internet age. He made grassroots racing watchable at scale. He gave it a stage. And he built an entire platform around the idea that everyday car enthusiasm deserves just as much celebration as Formula 1 or NASCAR.
Core Elements of the Cleetus McFarland Motorsports Platform
The platform isn’t just a YouTube channel. It’s a multi-layered ecosystem that touches every corner of car culture:
| Platform Element | Description | Purpose |
| YouTube Channel | Primary content hub with millions of subscribers | Builds audience and brand awareness |
| Freedom Factory | Physical oval racetrack in Bradenton, FL | Live events and community hub |
| FRDM+ Streaming | Independent streaming service for motorsports content | Monetize events beyond YouTube |
| Merchandise Line | Apparel, accessories, branded goods | Revenue and community identity |
| Cleetus and Cars Events | Fan-facing car show and racing events | Direct fan engagement |
| Racing Career | ARCA, NASCAR Truck Series participation | Credibility and content fuel |
| Business Investments | Dragway stake, airport, fabrication shop | Long-term platform infrastructure |
Each element feeds the others. The YouTube videos drive fans to the events. The events create content for YouTube and FRDM+. The merchandise connects fans to the brand between events. It’s a flywheel that keeps spinning faster the bigger it gets.
Freedom Factory — The Heart of the Cleetus McFarland Grassroots Platform
What Is Freedom Factory and Where Is It Located?
The Freedom Factory, formerly Desoto Speedway from 1971 to 2020, is a 3/8 mile oval short track in Bradenton, Florida.The circuit mainly hosts occasions organized by YouTuber and proprietor Cleetus McFarland. Wikipedia
The address is 21050 East State Road 64, Bradenton, Florida. When Cleetus bought it in early 2020, the old DeSoto Speedway was barely holding together — worn asphalt, crumbling facilities, and the kind of neglect that comes from years of declining attendance at small regional tracks across America.
McFarland bought the vacant DeSoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida, in early 2020, paying about half a million dollars, and renaming it the Freedom Factory. It has since been rebranded as a big grassroots motorsports complex with oval racing, drag shows, endurance, and live-streamed events. Wealthy Spy
Half a million dollars for a racetrack sounds like a bargain — and it was — but the renovation costs, infrastructure upgrades, and ongoing operational expenses made it a genuine financial bet on his own brand.
What Happens at Freedom Factory?
The Freedom Factory isn’t just an oval track anymore. It hosts a rotating calendar of events that span the entire spectrum of grassroots motorsports:
- Freedom 500 — The flagship annual event featuring Crown Victoria racing, burnout contests, and celebrity drivers
- 2.4 Hours of LeMullets — An endurance racing event with a distinctly Cleetus flavor
- Altima 600 — A fan-favorite event launched in 2024 featuring budget Nissan Altima racing
- Florida Man Games — A newer addition launched in 2026 celebrating all things uniquely Floridian
- Open burnout competitions — Regular events where fans can destroy their own tires for glory
- Car shows and fan meetups — Community-focused gatherings that celebrate everyday car builds
The Freedom 500 extravaganza delivered the goods on many levels — great grassroots racing, a smoke-billowing burnout contest, jumping minivans, a hardcore fireworks show, tons of cool cars to gawk at, and most of all a fun, relaxing vibe. Holley Motor Life
That description captures the Freedom Factory experience perfectly. It isn’t a sterile professional motorsport venue. It’s a party that happens to have a racetrack in the middle of it.
Freedom Factory as a Community Hub
What separates Freedom Factory from every other small oval track in America is what it represents. It’s proof that grassroots motorsports doesn’t have to be dying. It just needed someone willing to invest in the experience — to make the facilities better, the events bigger, and the whole thing worth traveling across the country to attend.
Fans don’t just watch at Freedom Factory participate. They enter their own cars compete in burnout contests. They meet Cleetus himself in the pits. That accessibility — the feeling that you’re part of something rather than just watching it — is the secret sauce of the entire platform.
Cleetus McFarland’s Most Iconic Cars and Builds
Leroy the Savage — The Car That Started It All
Ask any Cleetus fan to name his most famous car and they’ll say it without hesitation: Leroy. McFarland’s channel soared with wild builds like Leroy, a record-breaking Corvette C5, and Mullet, a winning El Camino racer. YEN.COM.GH
Leroy started life as a stripped-down C5 Corvette with an exo-cage. Over the years he evolved into something genuinely extraordinary. His standout creation, Leroy the twin-turbo C6 Corvette, is not just a testament to speed but showcases innovative engineering with a staggering 1,300 horsepower. CelebMist
Leroy holds the stick-shift Corvette record at 7.19 seconds in the quarter mile — a number that would embarrass purpose-built drag cars costing ten times as much. He won the Grannas Racing Stick Shift class at the 2023 World Cup Finals. He’s crashed. He’s broken down at the worst possible moments on camera. And through all of it, he’s become the most beloved car in automotive YouTube history.
The Full Cleetus McFarland Car Collection
Leroy isn’t alone. The garage at the Cleetus McFarland grassroots motorsports platform is a hall of fame in its own right:
| Car | Nickname | Type | Notable Facts |
| C5/C6 Corvette | Leroy the Savage | Twin-turbo drag car | 1,300+ HP, 7.19s quarter mile record |
| El Camino | Mullet | Supercharged racer | 2,000+ HP, 6-second quarter mile passes |
| Camaro | Ruby | High-performance build | Fan favorite, multiple race appearances |
| Crown Victoria | Neighbor | Stock-ish oval racer | Star of Freedom 500 events |
| Drag truck | Toast | Jet-powered drag vehicle | One of the wildest builds in his fleet |
| Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing | Crouton | Drift build | Being converted into world’s first Blackwing drift car |
Each car isn’t just a vehicle — it’s a character in an ongoing story that millions of fans follow episode by episode. That’s the genius of the platform. The cars have personalities. They win and lose and break down dramatically. You become invested in them the way you get invested in characters in a TV show.
The DIY Ethos Behind the Builds
What resonates most deeply about Cleetus’s builds is that they feel achievable. Not cheap — Leroy costs serious money to maintain at that power level. But the philosophy behind them is accessible. He doesn’t start with a factory race car. He starts with something junky and makes it fast through knowledge, creativity, and stubborn persistence.
That ethos — the idea that you don’t need a trust fund to go fast — is the philosophical foundation of the entire Cleetus McFarland grassroots motorsports movement.
Cleetus and Cars Events — Grassroots Motorsports at Its Best
What Are Cleetus and Cars Events?
Cleetus and Cars is arguably the most successful fan-facing event series in automotive YouTube history. Cleetus McFarland has transformed car racing events into dynamic, community-driven gatherings, with “Cleetus and Cars” standing out as a hallmark. CelebMist
The format is simple and brilliant. Fans bring their own cars. There’s a car show element where any build can shine. There are racing competitions open to regular people. Burnout contests. Autograph sessions. And the whole thing has an energy that no corporate motorsports event can replicate because it’s built around genuine community rather than ticket sales.
The Community Experience at Cleetus McFarland Events
Here’s what you actually experience at a Cleetus and Cars event:
- Car show with no elitism — Rat rods sit next to pristine show cars. Beaters compete alongside built race cars. Everyone belongs
- Open competition — Real fans race real cars on the same track where Leroy and Mullet make passes
- Direct creator access — Cleetus walks the pits, talks to fans, signs stuff, takes photos
- Live burnout competitions — One of the most crowd-pleasing spectator events in all of motorsports
- Family-friendly atmosphere — Kids grow up at these events becoming the next generation of car enthusiasts
- Premium merchandise drops — Exclusive event-specific gear available only in person
How These Events Grow the Grassroots Motorsports Platform
The events serve multiple functions simultaneously. It generate revenue directly through ticket sales and merchandise. They generate content for YouTube and FRDM+. They build community loyalty that translates into long-term audience retention. And they attract sponsorship partners who want access to the intensely engaged Cleetus audience.
The 100-lap Freedom 500 race featured a field of 27 drivers spanning the motorsports world from NASCAR veterans, to rising stars in other forms of professional racing, to professional athletes, to internet-famous social media content producers. Holley Motor Life
That crossover — bringing NASCAR veterans into a grassroots setting — creates a unique cultural moment that neither world could produce on its own.
FRDM+ Streaming — Building an Independent Motorsports Media Empire
One of the most strategically significant moves Cleetus made was launching FRDM+, his own dedicated streaming platform for grassroots motorsports content.
In just six years, Mitchell transformed the long-dormant DeSoto Super Speedway into Freedom Factory, a vibrant hub for motorsport enthusiasts. This remarkable shift was born out of necessity; after identifying the limitations of monetizing his content exclusively through YouTube, he built an independent platform where live events, exclusive content, and community features exist completely outside the algorithm. Strategyadvantedge
FRDM+ represents something genuinely new in motorsports media. It isn’t a network. It isn’t a streaming giant that licenses content. It’s a creator-owned platform built specifically for the grassroots racing audience — a community that mainstream sports networks have consistently ignored.
Cleetus McFarland Merchandise and Brand
How Cleetus Built a Merchandise Empire
The merchandise operation isn’t an afterthought — it’s a core revenue pillar of the Cleetus McFarland motorsports platform. His store offers everything from t-shirts and hoodies to hats, stickers, drinkware, and limited-edition event gear.
What makes it work is the authenticity of the branding. Nobody buys a Cleetus McFarland shirt just because it’s a nice shirt. They buy it because wearing it signals membership in a community. It says something about who you are and what you care about.
“Freedom” Branding and Its Cultural Significance
The word Freedom runs through everything Cleetus does. Freedom Factory. FRDM+. The Freedom 500. His catchphrases around patriotism and American car culture. His merchandise frequently features American flag imagery, mullet references, and the kind of unabashed celebration of blue-collar car enthusiasm that resonates deeply with his core audience.
It isn’t ironic. It isn’t performative. It’s a genuine expression of the culture he grew up in and the community he’s built his entire career around.
Cleetus McFarland’s Racing Career — From YouTube to NASCAR
Perhaps the most impressive chapter of the Cleetus McFarland grassroots motorsports story is his actual racing career. He didn’t just talk about racing. He went racing.
During the last few years, Cleetus has pivoted from strictly drag racing to racing just about anything he can fit into. In 2022 he competed in Robby Gordon’s Stadium Super Trucks series, and he was a straightaway from winning a race at Long Beach. Two years ago, he raced a dirt late model around Bristol — on dirt. Grassroots Motorsports
His NASCAR ambitions took a serious step forward in 2025 and 2026:
| Year | Series | Team | Notable Result |
| 2025 | ARCA Menards Series | Rette Jones Racing | Multiple starts, top-10 finish at Talladega |
| 2026 | NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series | Niece Motorsports | Debut at Daytona |
| 2026 | NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series | Richard Childress Racing | 3-race deal announced |
His Crown Vic races have attracted some big names in the NASCAR world, including Tony Stewart, Hailie Deegan, Alex Bowman and Greg Biffle. Those relationships built through Freedom Factory events directly opened doors into professional racing that most grassroots drivers could never access. Grassroots Motorsports
The Future of the Cleetus McFarland Grassroots Motorsports Platform
Expanding the Motorsports Infrastructure
Cleetus isn’t slowing down on the business side. Social media influencer and automotive YouTube star Cleetus McFarland made public that he recently made another big move by acquiring a 50 percent stake in Bradenton Motorsports Park, one of drag racing’s premier facilities. This strategic partnership aligns perfectly with Cleetus’ ongoing commitment to grassroots motorsports that first began with the acquisition and revitalization of the neighboring Freedom Factory oval track. Dragzine
He also acquired a private airport in Myakka City, Florida, in 2024, estimated at around 3.5 million dollars. Combined with his helicopter and fixed-wing pilot licenses, the airport gives the platform an entirely new dimension — both as a practical operational asset and as content fuel. Wealthy Spy
What Other Creators Can Learn From the Cleetus McFarland Model
The blueprint Cleetus built is genuinely instructive for anyone trying to build a passion-based platform:
- Authenticity scales — His audience grew because he never pretended to be something he wasn’t
- Physical spaces amplify digital brands — Freedom Factory made the platform real and tangible
- Community is the moat — Competitors can copy content formats but can’t replicate genuine community loyalty
- Reinvest aggressively — Every profit went back into cars, the track, and new business ventures
- Diversify before you need to — FRDM+, merchandise, and events mean YouTube algorithm changes don’t threaten the whole operation
Frequently Asked Questions About Cleetus McFarland Grassroots Motorsports Platform
What is Cleetus McFarland’s real name?
His full name is Lawrence Garrett Mitchell. He goes by Garrett Mitchell personally and Cleetus McFarland professionally. He was born April 5, 1995, in Omaha, Nebraska.
Where is Freedom Factory located?
Freedom Factory is located at 21050 East State Road 64, Bradenton, Florida. It’s a 3/8-mile paved oval that previously operated as DeSoto Speedway from 1978 until Cleetus purchased and rebranded it in 2020. Wikipedia
How did Cleetus McFarland build his motorsports platform?
He started with YouTube content built around authentic car builds and racing. He used that audience to launch merchandise, then invested profits into buying Freedom Factory. The physical venue enabled live events, which fueled FRDM+ streaming, which added another revenue layer. Each element reinforced the others in a continuously growing loop.
What is grassroots motorsports?
Grassroots motorsports refers to amateur and semi-professional racing done primarily for passion rather than professional career development. It includes drag racing, oval racing, autocross, track days, and car shows organized at the community level without factory team support or major corporate backing.
How can I attend a Cleetus and Cars event?
Tickets for Cleetus and Cars events and Freedom Factory events are sold through the official Cleetus McFarland website and event pages. Events typically sell out quickly, so signing up for email notifications is the best way to stay ahead of ticket releases.
What cars does Cleetus McFarland own?
His collection includes Leroy the twin-turbo Corvette, Mullet the supercharged El Camino, Ruby the Camaro, Neighbor the Crown Victoria, Toast the jet-powered drag truck, and his newest project — a Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing being converted into the world’s first Blackwing drift car.
Conclusion
The Cleetus McFarland grassroots motorsports platform is one of the most compelling entrepreneurial stories in modern sports media. A kid from Nebraska who loved his dad’s Crown Victoria taxis built a YouTube channel, bought a dying racetrack, launched a streaming service, and is now racing in NASCAR. All while somehow maintaining the exact same personality that made people subscribe in the first place.
That’s the real magic of what Garrett Mitchell built. The cars are incredible. The events are unforgettable. The business is genuinely impressive. But none of it would matter if people didn’t trust the guy at the center of it all.