After a messy Martinsville race, you’re going to need some Dude Wipes.
When reliving the chaotic Dude Wipes 250, it’s only fitting to highlight the guy representing the title sponsor.
Anthony Alfredo is a driver who has flown under the radar in 2024. One could argue this has been his best start to a season yet, with two top-10 finishes at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. These results, along with overall consistency, put the No. 5 Our Motorsports 12th in NASCAR Xfinity Series points heading to the half-mile paperclip of Martinsville Speedway.
Intending to increase or maintain his points position, Alfredo got a strong start to the weekend in qualifying. With a time of 19.807 seconds, the Ridgefield, Connecticut-native managed to place his No. 5 DUDE Wipes Chevrolet Camaro seventh-place on the starting grid.
With cars racing under the lights in cooler temperatures, the Our Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro took the track well. Alfredo worked hard to maintain his track position throughout the majority of the event. However, as the cautions fell, Alfredo was at the mercy of Martinsville and the varying strategies that come along with it.
“We definitely needed some Dude Wipes today to clean up some of the mess on pit road was not a skidmark-free race weekend for our our car,” Alfredo said after the race. “But you know, we had a top 10 car and drove all the way back up into there when we lost track position on strategy.”
The 25-year-old driver managed to come home inside the top-15, in 15th, after contact on the final lap sent the No. 43 of Ryan Ellis into a stopped Riley Herbst, an accident that also collected Brandon Jones.
Knowing the single-car operation has cars capable of running inside the top-10 on merit is a huge confidence boost for the small team.
“It’s been great. When we bring fast cars on the track like this, and we have the opportunity to go out there and race against some really big teams and pass a lot of them,” Alfredo shared. “It just makes everyone feel really good. And you know, shows that their hard work is paying off. So we’ll keep plugging away at it.”
The hard work for Alfredo continues outside his racecar in a virtual capacity, where he works as the sim driver for Hendrick Motorsports. Though that gig has had him working with the seventh-generation vehicle over the last couple of years, some things can be translated to the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
“It’s really fun being a part of that organization, working with those guys and helping them bring fast cars to the track. The NextGen car is so different that even though I turn a lot of laps every week, not a whole lot translates to the Xfinity side,” Alfredo explained. “But it’s still good visual cues and track time. So very blessed to have that opportunity and thankful for them. And you know, just happy to be here racing full-time in the Xfinity series. We’ve got our work cut out for us to make the playoffs, but I think we could do it.”
Should Alfredo and Our Motorsports qualify for the NASCAR Xfinity Series post-season this season, it would be quite the underdog story, considering the organization struggled majorly throughout 2023. Following Martinsville, the No. 5 stays 12th in the points standings heading into Texas.
Next weekend’s event at Texas Motor Speedway will mark the first race of primary sponsorship for Botticelli in 2024, adorning the No. 5 Chevrolet at the 1.5-mile facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Texas is kind of another race that can get a little bit wild. I mean, we’ve seen both ends where you know, we’re going there twice a year one race is really clean and the other one’s really chaotic,” he explained. “So if we have another fast Chevrolet Camaro, we could put ourselves up front and have track position just because it’s so important.”
Alfredo and Our Motorsports head to Texas Motor Speedway to continue the single-car team’s dream start to the year, as they look to disrupt the NASCAR Xfinity Series field.
