Strong Day Sees Alfredo Post Martinsville Track Bests

Anthony Alfredo in action at Martinsville Speedway. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – A season-best qualifying effort helped propel Anthony Alfredo to his seventh top-10 finish of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season Saturday at Martinsville Speedway.

After qualifying second for the National Debt Relief 250, Alfredo tallied 13th-place runs in each of the first two stages, though he averaged a 10th-place running position in the 250-lap race as a whole.

The 25-year-old from Ridgefield, Conn., spent 92 percent of the race inside the top 15 and, after restarting inside the top 10 on two late-race restarts thanks to advantageous chooses, was able to finish seventh at the .526-mile paper clip.

Saturday marked Alfredo’s best qualifying effort of the season, his best qualifying performance at Martinsville, and his career-best Martinsville finish in six starts at the historic track.

“Our No. 5 Dead On Tools Chevrolet Camaro was probably the cleanest Martinsville car I’ve ever left the racetrack with, and it was really fast all race long,” said Alfredo. “Everyone at Our Motorsports did an amazing job with preparation, and I feel we had a top-three car on lap times and average speed. We needed longer runs, though, because we weren’t bad on the short run … but we just weren’t better than the guys we were chasing in some of those shorter sprints.

“After 15 laps, man, we were clicking off top-three lap times and I’m really proud of that,” he continued. “But everyone knows Martinsville is a big track position game, and we got muscled around a little bit and lost some ground at a few not-so-great times in the race for our day and our strategy. The bigger teams don’t always like us being up front, but we’re not backing down and I’m glad we could get back to the top 10 where we belonged.”

With one race remaining in the Xfinity Series season, Alfredo has clinched a top-15 finish in the point standings and has an outside shot of overtaking JR Motorsports’ Brandon Jones for 14th in the season-long rankings, should things fall his way in the season finale at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway.

Coverage of the 200-mile season finale race from the one-mile desert oval is slated for Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p.m. ET, live on The CW, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.