Alpha Prime Racing will have a much easier time ensuring that it’s No. 45 entry makes the field for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Pennzoil 250 at the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway as the organization has acquired the owner points from the No. 4 JD Motorsports team. NASCAR confirmed the owner points transfer to TobyChristie.com on Monday afternoon.
The owner points transfer gives the No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing entry the 36th-place points in the NASCAR Xfinity Series owner standings. This puts the part-time Alpha Prime car behind the No. 07 SS-GreenLight Racing team, and ahead of, among others, the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing team, No. 6 JD Motorsports team, No. 35 Joey Gase Motorsports team, No. 10 Kaulig Racing team.
The top-33 cars in NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying lock into the race on their qualifying speeds, while the remaining five slots in the field are determined by owner point rankings for cars outside of the top-33 in qualifying speeds.
The No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing team will attempt to make this weekend’s race, and on Monday afternoon, the organization announced Garrett Smithley, who has competed in 15 NASCAR Xfinity Series races for JD Motorsports this season, will be the driver of the entry.
That announcement came on the heels of a Monday morning report from TobyChristie.com citing sources that said the JD Motorsports team laid off a large portion of its employees following the Pocono Raceway race weekend. The team withdrew its No. 6 entry, which Smithley was slated to drive, late in the week heading into Pocono, and took its No. 4 entry with driver Thomas Annunziata. The No. 4 car finished 28th at Pocono.
According to our previous report, JD Motorsports is not expected to be on the preliminary entry list for this weekend’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and if they do enter a car for the race, it’ll likely be a late entry. With no owner points to fall back on, JD Motorsports will have a lot of pressure to make the field on qualifying speed if they do bring a car to the track.
