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Quick Answer: Lawrence Garrett Mitchell — known as Cleetus McFarland — is an American automotive YouTuber and motorsports businessman with an estimated net worth of $5–10 million (2026). Celebrity Net Worth puts him at $10 million, the top of the published range. He turned a comedy character into a racetrack, an airfield, and a manufacturing stake.
Humble Beginnings
Lawrence Garrett Mitchell was born on April 5, 1995, in Omaha, Nebraska. He grew up around cars but had no money for motorsport — the expensive kind of racing was closed to him, so he started with the cheap kind: internet video.
His first real job in the car world was at 1320Video, an automotive media company, where he has said he earned about $100 a week. The money was negligible. The education was not — he learned how car content gets made, distributed, and monetized. In 2015, at an event called Rocky Mountain Race Week, a friend filmed him doing a redneck-comedy character called Cleetus McFarland. The video went viral. The character became the business.
The Breakthrough
Mitchell left 1320Video and bet everything on the Cleetus character full-time. The YouTube channel, Cleetus McFarland, grew into one of the largest automotive audiences on the platform — roughly 4.6 to 4.8 million subscribers and more than 2 billion total views.
The breakthrough was not the subscriber count. It was the realization that the audience could be converted into something harder than ad revenue: ticket buyers. While most creators sold ad reads on videos, Mitchell started promoting live events — drag racing spectacles with names like Cleetus & Cars and the Freedom 500. Events pay differently than videos. The promoter keeps the ticketing, concessions, sponsorships, and pay-per-view money. Mitchell decided he wanted to be the promoter, not just the talent.
The Peak Years
The peak years were a buying spree, and each purchase followed the same logic: own the venue, keep the margin. In late 2019 he bought the abandoned DeSoto Speedway in Bradenton, Florida — closing on December 19, 2019, by his own account — for a reported $2.2 million. After a year of renovation spending, he reopened it as the Freedom Factory and held the first public event in February 2021.
The track changed the economics of his business. Instead of renting venues for events, he owned the venue. He could sell title sponsorships of events at his own track and keep the venue’s cut too. In a sign of how seriously the venue is now taken, the zMAX CARS Tour announced its 2027 season opener at the Freedom Factory, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick expected to enter.
In November 2023 he bought a 50-acre private airport in Myakka City, Florida — Myakka Head, renamed Bald Eagle Airfield — for a reported $3.5 million, according to public property records cited by the Bradenton Herald and the Tampa Bay Times. (One outlet lists $2.2 million for the airfield, but that is the racetrack’s price — the two purchases got mixed up. The property records say $3.5 million.)
The third asset is equity, not property: his team holds a reported 20 percent minority stake in Motion Raceworks, an Iowa-based performance auto parts manufacturer, with the founders retaining majority control. The stake’s dollar value was never disclosed. It is genuine equity in a real manufacturing business — the kind of asset almost no other YouTuber holds.
The Pivot
In 2025, Mitchell pivoted from internet racing to real racing. He made ARCA Menards Series starts with Rette Jones Racing, including top-10 finishes at Talladega and Charlotte. Then came NASCAR proper: a Truck Series debut at Daytona in February 2026, driving the No. 4 Chevrolet for Niece Motorsports. (Some coverage mislabels the team as Rette Jones Racing — that was his ARCA team, not his Truck team.) He crashed six laps in and finished 37th. The result did not matter; the credential did.
The bigger move was announced on March 4, 2026: a two-year, part-time deal with Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series — the No. 33 Chevrolet, with Tommy’s Express as primary sponsor, debuting at Rockingham on April 4, 2026. A national-team deal with a real sponsor is a different income tier than internet exhibitions. It also reprices everything around him: appearance fees, sponsor rates, and the value of the events business.
Today
As of 2026, Mitchell’s estimated net worth sits in a $5–10 million range. Celebrity Net Worth’s $10 million is the most-cited single number and the top of the range; BestInBusiness.news gives $5–10 million; older 2025 estimates ran $4–5 million. The range is honest because the assets are private — his companies do not publish financials, and the racetrack, airfield, and equity stake have no public valuations.
The trajectory behind the range is what matters. Every major purchase — the $2.2 million track, the $3.5 million airfield, the manufacturing stake — is documented, and each one turned audience attention into hard assets. He married Madison “Madi” Lutz on December 18, 2021; they have a son, Rip, born in November 2022, and a daughter, Ella, born in 2024. (Several net-worth sites list his wife as “Railey Mitchell” — no source supports that name. It appears to be fabricated.)
Where the Money Goes
The wealth is real but illiquid. A $2.2 million racetrack and a $3.5 million airfield are assets, not cash — they cannot be quickly converted to spending money, and they cost real money to operate and maintain. Mitchell has described going to the Freedom Factory closing with essentially every dollar he had, days before the pandemic shut down the events business. That is not a man sitting on cash. That is a man who keeps going all-in.
Racing itself is the other major outflow. Real motorsport burns money at every level — cars, crews, tires, travel, entry fees. The NASCAR program is an investment in profile and future earnings, not a current profit center. The risk in the $10 million figure is concentration: most of the wealth sits in Florida motorsport real estate and a private-company stake, all of it tied to one man’s brand and one industry’s health.
Key Takeaways
- Own the venue, not just the content. The Freedom Factory purchase is the single decision that separates Mitchell from creators with bigger audiences — promoters keep margins that talent never sees.
- Illiquid wealth is still wealth, but it is fragile. A racetrack and an airfield are impressive assets that cost money every month they sit there.
- The $10 million is a ceiling, not a consensus. It is the top of a $5–10 million published range, built on private assets nobody can value from outside.
- The NASCAR pivot reprices everything. A national-team deal with a real sponsor moves him from internet exhibitions into an income tier where appearance fees and sponsor rates work differently.
FAQs
Is Cleetus McFarland his real name?
No. His real name is Lawrence Garrett Mitchell — “Garrett” to those who know him. Cleetus McFarland began as a comedy character in a 2015 viral video and became his professional identity.
Does he really own an airport?
Yes. He bought a 50-acre private airfield in Myakka City, Florida — renamed Bald Eagle Airfield — for a reported $3.5 million in November 2023, according to public property records.
Is his wife’s name Railey Mitchell?
No. Several net-worth sites list “Railey Mitchell,” but no source supports that name. He married Madison “Madi” Lutz on December 18, 2021, and they have two children.
Disclaimer: All figures are estimates based on publicly reported purchases, property records, and tracker models — not audited financial statements. Mitchell’s companies are private and have never disclosed their finances. The $2.2 million track price and $3.5 million airfield price come from reported property and press records; the equity stake’s value is undisclosed.
Last updated: October 13, 2026.
Daniel Ryan
Daniel covers celebrity and entertainment for readers who want more than a headline — the career path, the context, the parts that don't fit in a caption. He digs past the obvious angle on a person's story and pieces together something with real shape. His writing favors depth over speed, even on fast-moving topics.
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