Alfredo Escapes Darlington With 14th & A Stripe

Anthony Alfredo in action at Darlington Raceway. (Jacob Seelman/Race Face Digital photo)

DARLINGTON, S.C. – A quiet-but-solid Saturday at Darlington Raceway allowed Anthony Alfredo and Our Motorsports to escape The Lady in Black with a 14th-place finish.

Alfredo started eighth due to a qualifying washout that set the NASCAR Xfinity Series grid by NASCAR’s metric performance formula, and he showed top-10 speed early before a lap-20 competition caution derailed some of his momentum.

Losing track position on pit road put Alfredo just far enough back in traffic that he couldn’t quite make up the distance he needed to thanks to his car’s handling in dirty air.

Though Alfredo wasn’t able to collect any stage points, he did have a spirited battle with Ryan Sieg in the latter stages of the Crown Royal Purple Bag Project 200 before his eventual top-15 result.

“Man, Darlington is my favorite track, but I’m definitely not its favorite driver, I guess,” he said after the event. “It was a pretty smooth day. We had a really fast Chevrolet Camaro; I just honestly wish we hadn’t had the comp yellow, to be honest, because we were so fast in that first stage. We just lost that track position at that first break and could never quite get it back.

“I think if the first stage went green, we certainly were going to get stage points with the pace we had,” he added. I feel like we were probably a seventh- or eighth-place car at least. Late in the run, we were a top-five car [on pace], so I wanted more long runs that we never really got.”

Alfredo circled the shorter distance of the Darlington event as a determining factor in his race Saturday.

“This race goes by so fast every time we come here and when we go to Dover [Motor Speedway]; both the 200-milers are just so short,” he noted. “I hate that we never had the opportunity to show our strength in the long run or get that track position back after the first two stages.

“But we clawed our way back up to the top 15, which is the kind of grit and persistence this team always has. We never give up and we didn’t give up here at Darlington until the day was done.”

Alfredo was able to extend his margin over the playoff cut line to 20 points, but still wants more despite another “finish to appreciate” with the underdog team led by New England owner Chris Our.

“Certainly, Darlington was still a solid day for us, but after all the great runs we’ve had in the top 10 recently, it almost feels a little disappointing,” he explained. “It’s funny, [because] this is still a great day for our team, but after those top 10s you start to set expectations for yourself and want to be at that level every week.

“We’ll keep working one race at a time, but I’m glad we stayed out of trouble and kept the car mostly clean. We got a nice little Darlington stripe to take home [laughs]. But we’ll try again at Charlotte.”

Through 11 races, Alfredo has one top-five and five top-10 finishes, ranking 10th in the Xfinity Series’ regular season standings. The top 10 at the end of the regular season earn bonus points for the playoffs.

Alfredo and the rest of the Xfinity Series field will have a week off before resuming at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway on Saturday, May 25 with the running of the BetMGM 300.

Broadcast coverage of the event is slated for 1 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.