Alfredo: ‘There’s More To Be Done’ After Tying Season Best

Anthony Alfredo (42) races Brennan Poole at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Rusty Jones/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Though he tied his season-best NASCAR Xfinity Series finish of 18th Saturday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Anthony Alfredo knows there’s still plenty of growth ahead for he and Young’s Motorsports.

After starting 25th in the Hard Rock Bet 300, the 25-year-old from Ridgefield, Conn., improved his placement at each benchmark throughout the 300-mile distance. Alfredo was 24th in the first 45-lap stage and 20th after stage two before managing a lengthy green-flag run in the second half of the race.

He drove up to the top 15 at one point in the final stage, running as high as 14th place, before a late caution for a spinning Taylor Gray led to an overtime restart where several cars around him pitted for fresher tires.

That difference in rubber cost Alfredo a handful of positions during the two-lap sprint to the finish, but he still hung on for his second top 20 in as many weeks with the No. 42 RANDCO Industries/Roth ID Tag Chevrolet.

It was the latest step in “a continued improvement process” for Alfredo in his first year with crew chief Andrew Abbott and the Tyler Young-owned organization.

“We definitely improved from where we were a week ago at Las Vegas (Motor Speedway), and those are the kinds of things you’re looking for as a team,” noted Alfredo, who passed 97 cars Saturday, the fourth-most of any driver in the field.

“The one drawback we had was that we had to make some big adjustments at the start of the race in order to get the car where I needed it to be,” he explained. “That put us a bit behind for a while, but the fact I was able to drive all the way up to the top 15 during the long green-flag run we had was extremely encouraging for us, in terms of what we feel we can shoot for going forward.

“The late caution may have cost us a few spots to guys on fresher tires in overtime, but I do feel we’re slowly firming up our foundation as a team, which will allow us to get closer to our ultimate goals as the season progresses. We know there’s still a lot more work to be done.”

Saturday’s Homestead event featured a new co-primary partner for Alfredo in Roth ID Tag. The Roth ID Tag Identification System is an information tag that can be affixed to a child’s car seat. In the event of an emergency, the tag pulls from the car seat and becomes an emergency identification wristband.

For more information about the story behind the creation of the Roth ID Tag, as well as to order a ready-for-use kit, visit https://rothidtag.com/order/.

After back-to-back incident DNFs at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway and Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway put Alfredo and company in a points hole to begin the year, they’ve slowly begun to climb out of that deficit.

Alfredo moved up a position to 24th in the regular season standings leaving Miami, now less than one full race out of the playoff grid at just 54 points behind the 12th-place cut line held by Joe Gibbs Racing’s Brandon Jones.

Xfinity Series competitors return to the track next at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, a place that has been good to Alfredo throughout his three prior seasons at NASCAR’s second-highest level.

In six starts at the half-mile paper clip, Alfredo has two prior top-10 finishes, including a track-best seventh place from last year’s playoff race. He’s never finished off the lead lap in Xfinity Series competition at Martinsville.

Broadcast coverage of the Marine Corps 250 is slated for Saturday, March 29 at 5 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.