Dale Earnhardt Jr does not lose many fights about the NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award, and he was not about to lose one to a fan questioning whether Cleetus McFarland's audience could turn Carson Hocevar into Chase Elliott's most credible challenger.
The exchange unfolded across NASCAR Twitter in the days after Hocevar's breakout first Cup Series victory at Talladega. The 23-year-old's win has reignited a long-running debate about whether the popularity crown - held by Elliott since the start of his Cup career - is genuinely up for grabs, or whether the gap to the rest of the field is simply too large to close.
Earnhardt, who built much of the modern era of the award after winning it 15 times consecutively, weighed in with a dry assessment of what it would take for Hocevar's popularity boost to translate. The Talladega victor has been adopted aggressively by YouTuber-turned-racing personality Cleetus McFarland, whose audience has been one of the most influential pipelines for new NASCAR fans in recent years.
"Cleatus would have to campaign on social daily to make it competitive," Earnhardt wrote, intentionally misspelling McFarland's stage name. The needle was deliberate; the McFarland fanbase noticed.
One fan pushed back, accusing Earnhardt of dismissing Hocevar's case without evidence and pointing to the misspelling as proof. "You don't know that. You're just dismissing him and it's clear the disrespect you have based on the way you spelled Cleetus wrong on purpose," the fan replied. "I'll reiterate that u don't know bc the numbers ain't released publicly."
Earnhardt's response leaned on the only credential that mattered. "I won it 15 times and have a pretty solid understanding of how it works," he wrote.
The exchange resonated because the popularity award - and the NASCAR fan culture around it - has shifted significantly in recent years. Elliott's run since 2018 has been one of the most dominant in the award's history, but Hocevar's fanbase has grown rapidly thanks to his open communication style on social platforms, his willingness to poke fun at himself, and the McFarland endorsement, which puts him in front of an audience measured in millions on YouTube alone.
Earnhardt's broader point was that grass-roots popularity is not a substitute for a sustained, daily presence in the algorithmic feed where modern fan votes are increasingly mobilised. He has watched the award evolve from a NASCAR-administered honour into a year-long social media campaign that requires careful pacing. Hocevar's first Cup win is, in Earnhardt's framing, a starting line rather than the closing argument.
The spat is not without affection on either side. Earnhardt has talked openly about Hocevar's potential as a driver and respects his marketing instincts, while Hocevar himself has cited Earnhardt's late-career broadcast presence as an influence. McFarland, for his part, did not comment publicly on the exchange.
What the dust-up makes clear is that the popularity title in 2026 has become every bit as contested as the championship itself. Elliott still holds the badge, Hocevar has the moment, and Earnhardt - 15 times a winner - remains the reference point everyone has to argue against.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/dale-earnhardt-jr-cleetus-mcfarland-hocevar-popular-driver-debate-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
