Do it for Dale.
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.
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.
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.
He talked a lot on the episode about how he got so involved with that, and told some personal stories about things he witnessed, and it was really cool to hear about firsthand.
Cleetus also spoke quite a bit about how much both dale Dale Jr. and his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., inspired him, and wanted to know about how Jr. felt about him making “Do it for Dale” his personal slogan of sorts. Of course, there are many variations you’ll hear like that around the South, like “Raise hell, praise Dale,” for example… one of my personal favorites.
It actually got pretty emotional at that point, with Dale telling Cleetus he loves it, because he has a big fear that his father will somehow be forgotten over time. He says those kinds of things give his legacy “staying power,” and he feels comfort in knowing how deeply he resonated, and continues to resonate, with people:
“I love it. My fear is that he’ll one day be forgotten with time. My worry would be that he would just disappear into the distance, right? As we get further and further removed from his career.
I was like, I just hope he’s never forgotten, because he left such an impact on the sport. So that kind of thing, is the staying power. That is the reminder to me like, that he’s… he resonated with people.”
Cleetus said what I think many of us watching were thinking in reassuring Dale that no one else in racing had the kind of impact his father did, and Dale responded:
“When I hear things like that, it’s like, yeah, he still matters.”
I know Dale Sr. was his dad so he has a different perspective on it than all of us, but it’s impossible to think that his legacy would ever fade in any way. Dale was a larger-than-life character, really, who is well past just being a legend in the NASCAR world, but rather become an American icon beloved by so many all over the world.
But at the same time, when that’s your dad, I can understand why Dale Jr. has those fears and I think it’s totally fair. But it’s something I’ve never really heard him talk about, and I found it really interesting, even if unfounded in my personal opinion:
You can watch the full episode here:
