Dude, what a weekend for Anthony Alfredo, who piloted the DUDE Wipes Chevrolet Camaros for Our Motorsports in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and Beard Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series to career best finishes at Talladega Superspeedway.
Alfredo, who scored an electric third-place finish in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Ag-Pro 300, finished the weekend off with an incredible sixth-place effort in the GEICO 500.
While Alfredo was able to steer clear of the last-lap chaos, he didn’t luck into his career-best NASCAR Cup Series finish. The 25-year-old driver was near the front virtually all day long, and he even took the lead of the race three times, and was the leader for a total of four laps on the day.
For @anthonyalfredo it was a weekend filled with career-best finishes. He was third in the Xfinity race, and took home a sixth place finish after leading the GEICO 500 on three different occasions. Alfredo credits the @BeardOil62 team for bringing a capable car to the track. pic.twitter.com/j7PZttdt6g
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) April 22, 2024
“This was certainly a great race for us,” Alfredo said with a smile on his face. “Drove to the front, led a lot of laps, had good speed all day long, and put ourself in position at the end and we were able to captialize on some of the late-race chaos there and crossed the line in the top-10. Just shy of the top-five, that would have been great, new best Cup Series finish for me though. Just pumped about it really.”
After climbing from his car, Alfredo credited the underdog Beard Motorsports team, which has one full-time employee — crew chief Darren Shaw — for bringing a car capable of contending everytime they show up to the track.
“They do a tremendous job at just running a few races a year, but bringing cars that they know they can win with. And I take a lot of pride in being the one behind the wheel. I’m hoping to do a lot more with them,” Alfredo explained.
Sunday’s race was sweet for Alfredo, as it marked the best finish of his young career, but it was also a case of the driver finishing some unfinished business from the season-opening Daytona 500.
“I’m glad we were able to get that finish that we should have had at Daytona,” Alfredo stated. “This team deserves it. These sponsors deserve it.”
At Daytona, Alfredo and the No. 62 team became the Cinderella Story of the week as they secured their place in the field by turning the fastest lap in qualifying of any of the Open Cars, and in the race, Alfredo had positioned himself into a position to contend for a decent run at the end of the race, until disaster struck ahead of him.
“We had an awesome run at Daytona. There was nothing to hang our heads about. Same thing, we just kind of go boxed in at the end. That huge wreck happened, and I felt like I did a perfect job at doing all I could to evade it — I would do the exact same thing over again.”
While Alfredo and the Beard Motorsports team will not enter next weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Dover Motor Speedway, Alfredo will continue rolling through his full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series campaign with Our Motorsports as the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro.
By virtue of his third-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, Alfredo and his No. 5 team are one of the four teams eligible for the Dash4Cash $100,000 bonus next weekend. If Alfredo can pull off winning that bonus, it’ll go a long way to making the already competitive Our Motorsports team, even more competitive.
Alfredo sits 12th in the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship standings following Talladega. 12 drivers make it into the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs.
