(Photo: Josh Jones | The Podium Finish)
For Anthony Alfredo, changing teams isn’t an anomaly.
After the 2022 season, Our Motorsports cut down to one car from three and Alfredo made the move to BJ McLeod Motorsports.
This switch, however, is more natural. Alfredo’s entire team came with him, easing the transition into his fifth organization in as many years.
“It’s taken a lot of hard work and there’s still a lot to be done just for us as a group,” Alfredo told The Podium Finish. “[The crew] believed in me enough to go out and whim and do this, because we all knew it would take a lot to turn this program around.
“We’re doing a lot with a little, even more so than last year.”
After a lone season at the Cup Series level for Front Row Motorsports, Alfredo joined Our for the 2022 Xfinity campaign. He recorded four top 10s, including a pair to open up the season, while finishing 14th in points driving the No. 23 car.
Veteran crew chief Pat Tryson, who has eight Cup Series victories, called the shots for Alfredo last season and followed him to BJM. Under his guidance, Tryson has helped smooth the entire team’s transition into a new organization.
The biggest obstacle, Alfredo said, is understanding the different equipment at BJM.
“We already had all that chemistry, so we knew how to work with one another and what we expect out of each other,” Alfredo said. “This year is probably the first time I have had the opportunity to work with the same people. It’s under a different roof and the equipment is a little bit different, but we have the same group of core people and just different owners that have been a pleasure to work with.”
Those owners: journeyman BJ McLeod and his wife, Jessica. BJ has 330 starts across NASCAR’s top three levels since 2010 and is also a co-owner of Live Fast Motorsports in the Cup Series. Jessica co-owns BJM with BJ and is the CEO of Live Fast.
In eight seasons as Xfinity owners, BJ and Jessica have fielded 585 total entries but have yet to make it to victory lane. Regardless, the team has become a staple in the series.
“I can’t say enough about them. They’re super nice people,” Alfredo said. “They’re very hardworking. They believe in me and our team as a whole. They believe in each and every one of us and all the guys in the crew … it pushes us to want to succeed and do well for them because this is probably the first opportunity that they’ve had to be competitive at this level without an alliance or anything like that.”
BJ also gave Alfredo an opportunity to drive the Cup car at Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway. While he finished 33rd and 35th respectively, Alfredo learned from the experience.
“I really enjoyed the challenge of it. Totally different — zero translated from anything I knew about stock cars,” Alfredo said. “It was just fun to do it at tracks I’m familiar with and pretty good at so I could focus on learning the car … hopefully I get to do more of it.”
(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
Through 11 Xfinity races, Alfredo has shown speed, although it hasn’t added up to results. He’s 21st in driver’s points with an average finish of 23.1. Of the last five races, Alfredo has failed to finish three of them and earned last-place points in each.
One of the bright spots, however, has been the speed at superspeedways. Alfredo qualified 10th for the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway and led 18 laps a few weeks later at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He qualified sixth at Talladega Superspeedway in April and climbed to the lead in Stage 1 before Parker Retzlaff spun in front of him midway through Stage 2 and took him out of the race.
Alfredo called that moment bittersweet, acknowledging that the team had speed but wanted the opportunity to race for the win.
“We got shuffled back after that first pit stop and got caught up in the wreck. That was really disappointing because we had a race-winning car,” Alfredo said. “Even just a top five, or heck, a top 10 at that point would have been a hell of a lot better than wrecking and finishing [37th] … we needed to capitalize on having a car that fast and having a level playing field because we don’t have that 90% of the time.
“I think we’re all content with the speed we have had, but we know that there’s a lot more work to be done to be top 15 consistently, especially if we want to make the Playoffs.”
In addition to new equipment, Alfredo has faced the challenge of adapting to the new rule changes this season. NASCAR made adjustments to the rear-end housing of the racecars meant to limit skew, or the “crab walking” visual.
Alfredo said that the change likely affected smaller teams more than powerhouse organizations.
(Photo: Riley Thompson | The Podium Finish)
“Aside from what it does to the racing and the competition, in general, yes, it’s very different to drive at the bigger, faster tracks,” Alfredo said. “The racing might get better. I think more people are going to figure more stuff out, for better or for worse. Maybe we’ll figure some stuff out and get caught up, or maybe the big teams will get further ahead.
“It’s even more competitive than last year, and last year, I said it was probably the most competitive the series has been in a decade.”
Going forward, Alfredo hopes to dial in on consistency and piece together strong results as the series soon nears the halfway point of the season. But another point of emphasis is executing in the wild card races — not just superspeedways, but road courses as well.
Last season, Alfredo had a pole and four top-20 results in six road course races. There are eight on the schedule this season, including back-to-back to kick off June. In the first road course race this season at Circuit of the Americas, Alfredo finished 16th.
“We did build our road course program up a lot last year. We became a 10th to 12th-place car, at least, on the road courses,” Alfredo said. “If we can do that here, those are weekends we could definitely capitalize on.”
At over 100 points behind the Playoff cutline, Alfredo kept it cut and dry. His goal is to win his way into the Playoffs, something he feels is attainable.
“At this point, it really takes a win to make it,” Alfredo said. “If you’re not running top 10 weekly and scoring stage points every week, you pretty much need to win a race to be top 12.
“We’re not here to just ride around. We’re here to race and we’re a competitive team.”
