‘Leroy the Corvette’ Loses to a Honda Civic?!?

Well, that’s a bit awkward.

Cleetus McFarland and his beloved ‘Vette kart known as Leroy took place in the TX2K18 drag races in Texas the weekend of March 17-18, and he sure got a surprise. Leroy was entered into the Stick Shift Class Eliminations, and if you saw a prior coverage of Leroy’s never-ending evolution, you’ll know his new shifter is not the easiest lever in the world to move.

For anyone that’s familiar with TX2K races, they know it’s a premier event with all the heavy hitters from across the country. McFarland took on a Subaru in the first part of eliminations, and handled it quite well. However, he still let-off a little at the end because the car just wasn’t cooperating.

Commentary in the beginning of the video, and slow-motion footage throughout give some telling evidence that improvements can be made on launches. McFarland declares some improvements over the next few weeks at the beginning of the video: “We are going to pull Leroy’s transmission once again and send it back to RPM transmissions for big upgrades.”

“We’re pretty sure that my gear-missing issues in the video are more related to my shifter and clutch setup, but in an effort to move towards the 7’s we are going to change a lot of things, and the transmission will be one of them,” McFarland also states. What’s absolutely promised is that it will retain a T56 gearbox and have a stick shift.

ALSO SEE:‘Leroy the Corvette’ Takes on Sebring International Raceway

With those “racing excuses” out-of-the-way, we can see what happens when he lines up with a consistently fact 8-second Honda Civic.

McFarland’s Launch is actually pretty good, but the 2nd-to-3rd gear change is a bit sloppy, and 3rd-to-4th almost doesn’t even happen. Sadly, this fully eliminates him from competing any further in the brackets.

With a bit of humbleness and congratulations to the Honda, McFarland will have new motivation to get Leroy into the 7s.