YouTube star Cleetus McFarland fights to protect Bradenton racetrack

Manatee County’s largest homebuilder might have met its match in the mullet-wearing motorheads who want to protect a racetrack from encroaching single-family housing.

What’s happening: Manatee County commissioners are dealing with an odd case of Not In My Backyard — this time pitting YouTube celebrity Cleetus McFarland, who owns the old DeSoto Speedway, against Lakewood Ranch’s builders, who want to plant a new neighborhood right next to the 63-acre racetrack property.

Context: Motorsports started being held at the track in the 1970s, but it had been dormant for a few years before McFarland — real name Garrett Mitchell — bought it in 2020.

• He now calls it the “Freedom Factory,” the stage for his videos about fast custom cars, powerful engines and screaming tires.

Fast forward: Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, parent company of Lakewood Ranch, asked the Manatee Board of County Commissioners late last year to approve a Comprehensive Plan change so they can build 4,500 houses and a 20-acre school on about 2,300 adjacent acres, the Bradenton Herald reports.

Reality check: Racetracks are extremely loud and not typically good neighbors with housing developments.

Yes, but: The developer proposes to mitigate the noise with a wide berm, a tall fence and trees.

• They’ll also include a disclaimer for home-buyers to sign, acknowledging the nearby operation of the racetrack.

What they’re saying: “This line right here signifies the typical place that I knock the head gasket out of my engine when I’m making a pass, causing a loud explosion that every house in this community is going to hear,” Mitchell told commissioners at a meeting Thursday, pointing to a map of the proposed project.

• “Homes being built next to racetracks is the classic way racetracks fail.”

The other side: “Our client has no intention to do anything that affects them operating,” attorney Kyle Grimes, who represents Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, said, per the Herald. “We know it’s there and we’re going to buffer for it.”

What to watch: Commissioners voted 5-2 on Thursday to approve the first part of the developer’s request, which triggers a state review and comes back to the board in February.

• And they asked the developer to work with Mitchell to come up with a better agreement that protects the racetrack in the future.