It was easy to look past ARCA Talladega race winner Andy Jankowiak for the most sensationalist thing of the moment in Garrett Mitchell dba ‘Cleetus McFarland’ but both deserved equal praise.
Objectively speaking, no matter what anyone thinks of Cleetus, the YouTuber turned racer is generating tremendous attention towards all four NASCAR national touring divisions. Even if he stole the headlines on Saturday afternoon, Jankowiak’s victory received more eyeballs because of Cleetus.
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Understand that Jankowiak winning in a vacuum is really big deal at that level as well. In a different version of ARCA, Jankowiak would be his generation’s Frankie Kimmel but that was a different time.
A team like KLAS Motorsports, owned by Kevin Lapierre and longtime racer Andy Seuss, aren’t supposed to win these days against the likes of Joe Gibbs Racing and Nitro Motorsports. It’s the figurative knife to a gun fight. They have winning talent but not the budget.
So, when you see Jankowiak collapse on the car and say he’s done this numerous times before but always wake up … consider it with this context.
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“Just waiting to wake up,” Jankowiak told Motorsport.com after the race. “This is very much a ‘we’ and not a ‘me.’ Even before the ARCA stuff, there were a lot of people that kept me going and kept me in racing and got me to where I could have this opportunity.”
That’s what you need to know about this blue collar, second-generation Tour Type Modified race winner. But the connection to Cleetus runs deeper than just their 1-2 finish as they actually had a plan on that final restart.
“Me and Cleetus had a plan and we stuck to it,” Jankowiak said. “We were trying to work together before, but he was doing some things that wasn’t helping me and I wasn’t able to help him but we were open to a plan and he stuck to it. I’ll tell you, a lot of these guys, they won’t stick to a plan and Cleetus stuck to a plan and I’m just happy with the way it turned out.”
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That plan mostly involved him pushing Cleetus to the front as long as they agreed to stay together. Cleetus darted low to cover Gus Dean and that’s where Jankowiak committed to his line.
It won him the race.
“He would have won if he didn’t try to move down for that block,” Jankowiak said. “Lucky me.”
Meanwhile, you would think that Cleetus won the race, him standing on top of his car on pit road and hamming it up for the crowd. That isn’t meant to be derogatory, by the way, because this was a big deal to him too.
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Leading a lap and nearly winning the race was a level of validation on the road to one day making a start in the Daytona 500. He recently had NASCAR deny him a superspeedway license in the O’Reilly Series due to a poor showing in his series debut at Rockingham, where he spun out and had two other sketchy moments in traffic.
“Like I’m doing this obviously a lot different than everybody else where I’m coming in with this huge following and trying to learn on the fly instead of learning little by little,” Cleetus said. “Even though I suck some weekends and do really terrible, these guys still come out for me.
“We finally got a run where I’m up front, and it was like, it hit me in the car how lucky I am to have this opportunity to be up there and using the knowledge (Greg Biffle) taught me and I’m fired up.”
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So that’s why he celebrated the way he did, but he also made a point to shake hands with Dean, and walk into Victory Lane to congratulate Jankowiak with a huge bear hug.
How did racing them for the win feel in real time?
“How do I say this … it was let’s effing go,” Cleetus said. “My foot was pushing through the floorboard and he side drafted me and I could just feel the other car coming. I’m like ‘let me go’ and if I could have cleared him sooner, and had just a little more energy, I would have had it.”
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