Cleetus McFarland’s 10.3-liter ‘Toast’ Camaro Sets Skidpad Ablaze
Blowing an $11K big block only takes around 15 seconds when trying to send the world’s best burnout at Summernats.
If you own an LS or to be honest just like cars in general, you probably know a little something about Cleetus McFarland. He made his fame being part of the online street racing video group called 1320 video. They have amounted a healthy 2.69 million followers from their insanely popular racing videos. Since then, McFarland has come a long way from then and now even has a YouTube channel himself with 1.72 million followers. It seems people like a daily dose of horsepower in their lives.
McFarland is always up to something and recently he was interested in taking part in one of the biggest automotive events of the year anywhere in the world: Summernats. This festival is an annual event renown in Australia which is known for its crazy burnout competitions and extreme builds. The world’s premier burnout competitions happen at this event.
Some folks build cars all year just to get a shot at the prize money and glory and they come internationally. McFarland thought it was a good idea to bring some of his own bald eagle power to the event. Thanks to Cleetus McFarland on YouTube, we get to see what the hype is all about.
For those unaware about the rules for this event, the burnout must last 60 seconds at least and the car must survive the time to have a valid run. There is then a panel that judges both smoke levels and driver skill. As you might imagine, this high-octane environment can lead to things going wrong fast. However, there is a massive safety crew ready at all times.
Most of the cars at this event run methanol injection and ultra-rich tunes to keep the engines cool in this harsh environment. Thus, just a little leak or slip up can have massive results and fires are definitely expected. McFarland came out to the event with the idea of winning, thus, they put everything on the line. Their car of choice was a third-generation Camaro with a ridiculous BluePrint Engines 632ci (10.3-liter) big block V8. Not to mention the giant blower on top of an engine already making 815 HP stock.
Sadly before they got to do their first official run, the team was disqualified for not having rear brakes. However, they still let them run for the sake of it. You don’t fly a car overseas a couple thousand miles for nothing. Thus, they mounted up the red-blue colored rear tires and went full send. The first couple seconds the run was going perfectly. Massive smoke was generating and the car looked competitive.
However, soon after both rear tires would light on fire, resulting in McFarland tapping the barriers, blowing some methanol and then shooting up a fireball probably 20-feet-long. This would then literally light some fire marshals on fire in the process, only to then shortly a couple seconds later blow the engine. According to a later video, the reason for the failure was a complete loss of crankcase pressure, which destroyed the entire bottom end.
Not all is lost however, the team would manage to secure another 632 ci engine replacement and get the car running again to finish up the weekend at Summernats. While it may not have been the fantasy weekend they were hoping for, they got to run it until the tires blew and that’s what they came for. The bald eagles back home would be proud.
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