What a story.
Today, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had Cleetus McFarland as a guest on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, and if his name sounds familiar but you don’t exactly know who he is, he helped out a ton during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina.
Along with NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, they flew supplies in their helicopters for days getting to hard-to-reach places in the mountains that were in dire need with no water, power or even homes and roads in many cases. I think we’ve all seen all of the photos and videos of the disaster zone it was there after Hurricane Helene, and honestly, even now in so many places. The damages and destruction will take years to recover from, but so many have lost things, and people, that obviously they can never get back or have replaced, which is the real tragedy.
Anywho, Cleetus told Dale a little bit about how he got involved, which first started when he and Biffle had been connected at a race not long before that. They talked for maybe a couple minutes, but managed to get each others phone numbers, which would obviously become very important, little did they know.
Cleetus’ real name is Lawrence Garrett Mitchell, and he competes part-time in the ARCA Menards Series, driving the #30 Ford for Rette Jones Racing. He also has a very popular YouTube channel, where he puts out a lot of content about his love for helicopters and that type of thing, in addition to racing.
Right as Hurricane Helene was hitting WNC, Cleetus and his wife, who live in Florida, were preparing to fly his new helicopter to dinner when he got a call about potentially needing help in the mountains once the weather subsided. He could tell his wife wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of him being gone for several days, so he told her to come with him and they’d go to dinner somewhere in North Carolina, just in case.
Compassionate and empathetic Americans do what they do best and organize to help their fellow citizens.
Private helicopter pilot Cleetus McFarland, his wife, and NASCAR Busch series champion Greg Biffle collaborated to evacuate those in need after Hurricane Helene, delivering… pic.twitter.com/d4Ro1CGMjj
— Jeff Schilly (@El_Jefe_Schilly) October 4, 2024
When he got close to the mountains, he realized it was so much worse than they could’ve imagined:
“We’re cruising in, and all of a sudden, I’m like, there’s no power. It’s black, because it’s night time now. It is black, and I made a post of my helicopter at the fuel station or even on my pad at home or whatever and I said heading to North Carolina to see what’s going on. And when we landed had like 10,000 shares, I’m like, ‘What?’ My phone is exploding with my friend saying I can’t get a hold of my grandparents in Asheville whatever, I’m like, what the heck?
And Biffle texted me too, and he only has my phone number because of the race. But we had only talked for two minutes, whatever. He says, ‘Hey, if you wanna come stay at the house, that’s fine.’ I said, ‘No, don’t worry, I already booked the hotel.’ And I was just gonna land at the hotel or whatever, in the parking lot next to it or something. Because in these crisis situations, you kinda get off the hook on where you land the helicopters. Well, the power is out in the whole Greenville area, imagine you’re just rolling in and all the lights stop.
And I didn’t expect that. So I had to call Biffle because the hotels were closed, and I go land in his in his yard. Actually, I think I landed at Statesville that night, but then his yard the next night. And we just got dinner, made a game plan. This is him and I hanging out for the first time essentially. And I just realized in that moment that this dude is selfless, he is a guy that’s willing to help people and go out of his way.”
The next morning, they got to work, though they had no idea what they were really in for in terms of the damage:
“We didn’t know what we were getting into in the morning. I had put out my email, and I had probably 1,000 emails, my wife and I went through and systematically, marked them down on our foreflight. And in the morning, we took off with water bottles that Greg had filled to the roof in the back of the helicopter. Went in under this little cloud layer, and we were just blown away at the damage that we saw.
We immediately stopped, helped some people, dropped off the water, pulled some people out. Got back in town, where there was cell service, and I just started calling people, got more helicopters and we just flew all day for the next couple days, just helping people.”
Of course, Dale Jr. pointed out just how dangerous it was to have all of those helicopters flying around, with very little communication, and it’s really a miracle there were no disasters in the sky:
“Some of the most dangerous flying you can do. Bad weather… you know what’s incredible about that too, is that there was zero GA, general aviation, accidents, in the whole thing. I don’t understand… that blows my mind”
Cleetus said that his helicopter had traffic systems in it, but a lot of them didn’t, and they only had air traffic control help within four miles of the airport.
He felt sure there would be some article about an accident after he left, though thankfully, the pilots did an amazing job and
“Brother, nobody wadded one up. When I left, there was like 70 helicopters there and I thought there’s no way, there’s no way there won’t be an article later this week about one going down. There’s just no way. Somehow all the pilots just did a fantastic job, and they’re all… it’s amazing.
Like you said, dangerous flying, I mean, when you’re hovering high above the ground, say there’s a bunch of trees, you gotta go right down on it. That is the most vulnerable position you can be in in a helicopter, and we did it so many times.
And then we’re just pulling people out, so you’re going out heavy. When you have a high performance helicopter, it’s fine, but like if anything goes wrong, you’re toast. There’s debris and stuff, it was a recipe for disaster. But I don’t know if God was on our sides for all these pilots or what, but I think it’s a miracle that no one wadded one up.”
Obviously, when you see someone below you waving their hands in desperation needing a little help, everything else goes out the window, so to speak, and you’re “blind” to the true danger in that moment:
“You’re blind to it. You’re totally blind to it. When you pass over a spot and there’s people on the ground waving their arms, the risk is gone. It doesn’t even cross your brain. It’s just up to you and your skill at that point, I guess.”
Eventually after a few days, when they made sure there were no more extremely urgent calls left, Cleetus and his wife decided to go home because they had just left for what was supposed to be dinner… they obviously ended up staying much longer than they’d planned to, but his wife’s mom was missing work to watch their kids and they needed to get home.
Cleetus and his wife, Biffle and so many others did so much to help residents of the North Carolina mountains when they needed it the most, and it was a true life or death situation. What they did was heroic, and it’s sad but heartwarming to hear him talk about all of it.
I love that Dale Jr. had him on to talk about that, in addition to all of this other endeavors, and you can watch the portion of the podcast where they talk about Hurricane Helene here:
