This is the first off-season that Anthony Alfredo has really been able to relax during the holidays. He also has a great deal to look forward to over the season ahead too.
Alfredo had previously announced his full-time Xfinity Series effort with Our Motorsports, a reunion from the 2022 season, but also revealed a two-race Cup Series stint with Beard Motorsports that includes the Daytona 500 and April race at Talladega.
He will be the first one to tell you he isn’t entirely where he wants to be from a competitive or partnership activation standpoint but the past three seasons have all built towards one of his best opportunities yet.
Alfredo took a BJ McLeod Motorsports car that finished 35th in the owner standings the year before, with various drivers, to 20th in the final standings in 2023. He did so with a team that had just four cars and four employees — meaning that his primary goal was to finish the race and then maximize the results from there.
If they crashed in any given race, there was no shop crew preparing another car, meaning the crashed car would need to be shipped back to the shop and rebuilt by the road crew prior to the next race. That’s not excuse making. It’s just the reality of racing on that side of the Xfinity Series garage when not part of a Cup Series affiliated program.
Meanwhile, Our Motorsports is scaling down to just one full-time car for Alfredo and the entirety of their effort will go towards that program. The team will have leased engines and it’s the best opportunity for the 24-year-old to contend for a playoff spot yet.
And that is the goal.
“I think top-15s are our goals,” Alfredo said. “Top-10s will be our good days and on a really good day, a top-5. That’s their goals. My goal is always to win, right. But I think we can point our way into the playoffs. Winning automatically takes care of that but I think we can point our way in if you capitalize on bad days for the cars up front.”
Chris and Mary Our are committing more resources to Alfredo than he’s ever had at the Xfinity Series level. While he still plans to be a methodical racer with the intent of taking care of their cars, he also concedes the opportunity will allow him to be more aggressive when a situation warrants it.
“We’re not in it just to try to survive to top-20s,” Alfredo said. “We want stage points. We want to make the playoffs. I’m looking forward to having an edge behind the wheel.”
And the reason Alfredo is able to put himself in these kind of improved positions is the number of partnerships he has cultivated over the past several seasons. A SponsorUnited Motosports Market Partnerships Report actually cited Alfredo as the most endorsed driver in NASCAR in terms of sheer volume.
Connecting with partners to fuel his on-track chances is just as important to Alfredo as his race craft.
“I feel like I learned a lot the past three years, especially when I went Cup racing,” Alfredo said of the 2021 season with Front Row Motorsports. “I learned a lot about the business side. I take a lot of pride in the partnerships I’ve cultivated and the people I get to work with.”
Which leads to his two-race Cup Series stint with the Beards.
Beard Motorsports have always brought race winning cars to superspeedways over the past several years for drivers Brendan Gaughan, Noah Gragson and Austin Hill. Their affiliation with Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing and ECR Engines makes them legitimate threats every time they unload at Daytona and Talladega.
Alfredo has just one previous start in the Great American Race and he was involved in a Lap 15, 15-car pile-up that leaves him with what he describes as unfinished business in NASCAR’s Super Bowl.
“The Beards are great people,” Alfredo said. “Beard Oil is woman owned and operated. I’m really looking forward to bringing awareness to that too.
“Their speedway stuff, ECR power, having a lot of Chevy teammates in the race — a lot of reasons to be excited for that weekend. I’ve always had respect for how competitive they are when they show up for those races, so to go down with them knowing we’ll have a shot, that’s really exciting.
“It’s one of those races where you never know what can happen if you make it to the end and I hope we have a lot of stories to tell leaving that weekend.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
