Cletus McGuffie

"Damn, I knew I had another beer around here somewhere..."

- Cletus McGuffie

Cletus McGuffie (born July 17, 1977 in Bald Knob, Arkansas) is a 'Murican race car driver currently competing in the ARLA Elite Series, behind the wheel of Team Burr's flagship #54 car with significant backing from Stelling Country Draft. He is known best as the only driver in the field to race under the Confederate flag, in a display of his allegiance to what he calls "good ol' Southern values".

Early life
McGuffie, along with his childhood friend Billy Bob Bradburn, began tinkering with cars at an early age. Their first experiences involved sabotaging the cars of Bald Knob's African-American residents. Their love of working under the hood led them to working at the local auto shop as teenagers.

It was around this time that McGuffie started following motorsports, and he made it a goal to become a racing driver himself. One day in 1995, one of the customers at the shop revealed himself to be an executive at Stelling. He noticed that McGuffie was sporting a Steve Marshall hat, and asked McGuffie if he wanted to take up racing. After McGuffie said yes, the Stelling executive claimed that the brand was looking for a driver for their new late model team, and invited him to an audition at the nearby Prairie County Speedway, ignoring any possible repercussions of a beer brand backing an underage driver.

McGuffie arrived at Prairie County the following Saturday only to find that a heavy downpour had made the track undrivable. McGuffie was also the only person to have shown up for the audition, so Stelling signed him to the late model by default.

McGuffie's first race was at Prairie County on Independence Day weekend, where he failed to make the A-main after a spectacularly avoidable accident while fighting for the last transfer spot. However, McGuffie's failures were overshadowed by Stelling's fantastic sales at the concessions stand that night. Performance immediately became a non-issue, so McGuffie kept the ride with considerable pressure lifted from his shoulders.

McGuffie spent the next fifteen years racing late models and working at the auto shop. Billy Bob Bradburn joined his friend at the track in 2003 when he was signed to the Stelling team as McGuffie's car chief. McGuffie won his very first A-main later that year, but this was due to every other car crashing or experiencing a mechanical problem rather than any mechanical expertise that Bradburn may have brought to the team.

ARLA
Before the 2011 racing season, McGuffie began eying the higher tiers of racing. Stelling's profits were large enough to justify backing McGuffie in the ARLA Elite Series, but they could not field a car for him. McGuffie and Bradburn decided to field their own team, Back Roads Racing, after securing a few smaller sponsors.

Back Roads Racing showed up at the Rookie Shootout, and drew the fifth position on the grid. McGuffie ran well off the pace, but brought home a 19th-place finish in his first taste of ARLA competition.

McGuffie hardly improved as the year progressed, and controversy struck in the aftermath of the race in Mosport. After avoiding an accident int he second round, McGuffie immediately spun the car out in avoidable fashion. Race control grew suspicious, and McGuffie was found to have been driving while intoxicated, earning himself a 6-race suspension. McGuffie and Stelling appealed this ruling; Stelling executives stated, "We are very disappointed in ARLA's decision to punish Cletus for enjoying our product". These appeals were to no avail, and Billy Bob Bradburn ended up piloting the Back Roads car during McGuffie's suspension, with no better results.

Back Roads Racing scaled back to a partial schedule for the 2012 season, and the team continued to experience laughably bad performances aside from McGuffie's heat race at the Rockford 200, in which he ran in a transfer spot for most of the race before being displaced by Kevin Monroe. This somehow impressed Team Burr, and McGuffie was immediately approached with a contract offer for a full-time ride in 2013. McGuffie took the offer, placing himself in the team's flagship #54 car for next season. Stelling will follow him to Burr, and it is believed that they will provide free drinks to the Team Burr staff on race weekends.