IT NEVER ceases to amaze me how the magic algorithm behind YouTube manages to know exactly what I want to watch, and when.
For instance, a few weeks ago I was watching a video online that featured some boating so naturally the suggested Videos offered up were of a similar theme. As a result, I now subscribe to four excellent channels about Super yachts and the people that run them – a topic beforehand I had little or no interest in.
Last year, during the first Covid-19 lockdown when the world came to a crashing halt, that magic piece of computer code suggested a video about a guy in Florida who purchased and salvaged an old, abandoned eighth-mile Oval track in Southern Florida.
His name is Cleetus McFarland.
If you’ve not watched any of ‘ol Cleeter’s content, It might be worth checking out.
Cleetus, real name Garret Mitchell, fell into YouTube stardom via his redneck personality more than five years ago and has since built an incredible operation around the channel, including multiple full-time staff, a fleet of race cars and the motorhome with which to travel them, a merchandise operation and so much more.
Most of it is about his drag racing – he’s famous for owning the world’s fastest stick-shift Corvette, a spaceframe, body-less example named “leeroy” – as well as being a star on the burnout tour.
However, since purchasing the DeSoto Speedway – now renamed the Freedom Factory, which by the way is a superb name for a circuit, Cleetus and his 2.7 million subscribers have been taking a journey into the world of oval track racing. And drifting. And Jet Boating. And burnouts. And restoring old racetracks.
It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, to say the least, but thanks to binging most of his earlier content during lockdown, I’m completely hooked.
But for the sake of this story let’s get back on track and talk oval racing.
The thing is that we’re not talking about NASCARs here.
You see, Cleetus’ ambition to make clickable YouTube content and stuff that will bring paying spectators through his gates or a YouTube pay-per-view has seen him get plenty innovative when it comes to putting on races.
Perhaps not as safe or as high-level as professional-spec motorsport, but certainly inventive. It’s also ridiculously entertaining and right there is the crux of the matter.
You see, rather than putting on a race for Stock Cars, the Freedom Factory’s major race is a headline event called the “Freedom 500”, which quite logically is contested by a grid of essentially stock, ex-police force Ford Crown Victoria’s.
They are V8-powered, column auto, rear-drive, tough-as-nails Police chasers that have been retired and put up for action in their hundreds which, incidentally, must be how many Cleetus has purchased so far.
The result early on was wild and unhinged racing, but as the circuit has evolved and the organisation improved it’s evolved into what is actually pretty bloody good competition. Best of all, it’s incredibly entertaining to watch.
Who would have thought: low grip cars with enough grunt, on rubbish tyres and with just enough performance to make them spectacular putting on a good show? I know, right?
While Cleetus’ ‘Freedom 500’ event in the Crown Vic’s was for his YouTuber mates and a few racing ring-ins (NASCAR Cup star Alex Bowman is a friend and participated..), his most recent headline race saw the field opened to anyone who wanted to build a suitable car.
That suitable car, by the way, had to be a stock Ford Ranger: a quintessential US pickup truck or in our terms – a Ute.
And we’re not talking current Rangers, either – these were the stuff you’d find on sale in any good US Ford Dealer in the 1990s and early 2000s, so not the bastion of modern technology and high performance, then.
The rules were simple: add a roll cage, safety gear like seat, harness and window net and tyres if you wanted but otherwise; it had to be stock.. though quite how strictly that was policed we will probably never know. Anyway, they proved the eventual winner had not fitted Nitros to his car so that’s clearly enough.
Now, I will state outright that two cars were rolled in the process of completing the 60-lap “Danger Ranger 9000” – which has to be the best name for a car race, ever – however both drivers came out unscathed and one of them, who is also Cleetus’ trusty lieutenant, even re-fired his truck and re-joined the race.
Much like the Crown Victoria races, though perhaps even moreso, these things were a hoot.
They didn’t handle, they didn’t stop and they barely turned – but the result was that the racing was utterly brilliant. Exactly the kind of thing you’d pay good money to see, or in this case, watch on the internet.
In putting basically stock and generally fairly rubbish road cars into combat, this Florida Man YouTuber has basically solved most of motorsport’s problems as organisers struggle to engage the fans, promote better racing and more competition.
NASCAR have spent millions on their next-generation Cup Cars in a bid to achieve all of that.
Supercars have done the same here and F1 is about to do the same with their cars next year.
Turns out they’ve been barking up the wrong tree.
The answer, clearly, is to go and buy a fleet of old Police Cars or old Utes, give them a bit of the requisite safety addons and send them. Simple!
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