Anthony Alfredo has been given the opportunity of a lifetime this weekend at Phoenix Raceway.
As Tucson, Arizona-native Alex Bowman, the full-time driver of the No. 48 Ally Financial Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports, deals with symptoms of a vertigo diagnosis, Alfredo, the team’s simulator and reserve driver, is stepping in to compete in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at the one-mile oval.
This comes just one week removed from Bowman exiting his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the closing laps of last Saturday’s event at Circuit of The Americas (COTA), feeling what we now know were symptoms of vertigo, and making way for FOX Sports pit spotter and part-time NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver, Myatt Snider, to jump in the No. 48 for the final 19 laps of the event.
Alfredo, who is the designated fill-in driver for the Hendrick Motorsports team, says that he’d flown home following last Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series event at Circuit of The Americas, leaving the team to scramble to find another driver to get behind the wheel. The 26-year-old driver competes full-time in NASCAR’s second-tier division for Viking Motorsports, driving the No. 96 Chevrolet.
Sunday’s 312-lap contest will mark the 44th start in the NASCAR Cup Series for Alfredo, and his third at Phoenix Raceway.
“It feels more real being at the track, suited up, more comfortable in the car, but first want to send my best wishes to Alex [Bowman],” Alfredo said. “I know he’s pretty bummed this weekend, I’m sure. I know I would be in that position, so it’s difficult driving someone else’s car, but proud to be the one to represent him, the Ally No. 48 team, and all the men and women at Hendrick Motorsports. It means a lot that they believe in me to put me in this position; it’s a lot of responsibility, but it’s a huge opportunity, and I look forward to making the most of it.”
What really makes Alfredo a perfect fit for this role, though, is the fact that he’s spent the last four seasons working as the simulator driver for Hendrick Motorsports, and in doing so, has developed a rapport with the organization and its competition personnel.
“I already have an established relationship with all four teams, the crew chiefs, and the engineers, working with Blake Harris [crew chief of the No. 48] and that whole team, they already know how I communicate, we have existing chemistry, and this is my fourth year as a full-time sim driver for them,” Alfredo added. “So, I drive the simulator every day during the week and run through every possible setup imaginable and every adjustment you can make to those for them all to be successful, and for Hendrick Motorsports to remain the dominant organization they are in the NASCAR Cup Series. So, that makes the transition a lot easier.”
Plus, with Phoenix Raceway serving as the host of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race for the last several years, Alfredo has recorded more laps in the Hendrick Motorsports simulator than at any other racetracks in recent years, as the team has “left no stone unturned” to find the perfect setup that could clinch them a championship, like Kyle Larson did last November.
“I have a lot of laps here, I have a tremendous amount of laps at every track but with this being a championship race, I have more here than anyone else, and we haven’t really left any stone unturned as far as correlating from sim to reality and tuning the cars,” Alfredo explained. “I’m looking forward to seeing what that really looks like now, but also applying the things I’ve learned in the sim to this opportunity on the track.”
Alfredo joins a significant list of drivers who have served as fill-in drivers for Hendrick Motorsports in the past, including Regan Smith, Josh Berry, Jordan Taylor, Noah Gragson, Justin Allgaier, and several others. In fact, Alex Bowman, the driver who he will be replacing this weekend, got his start with Hendrick Motorsports through an interim role, where he showed out at Phoenix Raceway and contended for a victory.
In the days leading up to his Hendrick Motorsports debut, Alfredo hassought out several of those drivers for advice on his situation.
“I think for us, it’s about nailing the fundamentals. A lot of people have been in this position, and I’ve gotten some really great advice of things they would do differently, and all of those people around me, who have put me in this position, have given me a lot of information and tools to go out there and be successful, so the biggest thing is running a clean race, run all the laps, put yourself in position and executing the fundamentals. If you do that, you’d be surprised where you end up a lot of times.”
When Alfredo straps behind the wheel of the No. 48 Ally Financial Chevrolet Camaro on Saturday for NASCAR Cup Series practice, this opportunity stops being about him and instead becomes about the team, which has had a miserable start to the season and sits 36th in series point standings.
“It’s one of those things that’s just weird, right? I don’t want to see anyone in the position Alex is in, so it’s hard for me to be excited. That makes it certainly disappointing because a lot of people are asking me how excited I am, and I’m not excited that I have to fill in for someone who’s not able to be in their own car this weekend. But, of course, a huge opportunity for me to go out there and do a good job and maybe turn some heads. But I don’t feel like I have to prove anything to anybody. I don’t think they would have picked me if they didn’t think I could do it, right?”
And listen, nobody in the world would blame Alfredo for daydreaming about the possibilities surrounding his future with Hendrick Motorsports, and whether this could blossom into something more expansive with the organization, but when asked about it on Friday, the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series veteran shut that prospect down, immediately.
“I have no expectation of anything like that,” Alfredo said matter-of-factly. “As I said, this is a one-race opportunity for me. We’re here in Phoenix, and I’m focused on this one race. We’ll see where it leads, but I’ve got a full-time opportunity in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series now that I’m going to be focused on this afternoon and tomorrow once I get out of the Cup car. We’ll just have to go one race at a time.”
Alfredo will get his first on-track time in the No. 48 Ally Best Friends Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 on Saturday, March 7 at Noon ET (10:00 MST), with qualifying scheduled for 1:10 PM ET. Both will be shown live on Prime Video.
