This weekend isn’t about Anthony Alfredo but is instead about Alex Bowman, Blake Harris and whatever the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 team needs in a substitute role at Phoenix Raceway.
Like, Alfredo is not oblivious to the fact that a chance to fill-in for the ailing Alex Bowman is an opportunity to show up and show out in one of the best prepared cars in the NASCAR Cup Series but that would be a byproduct and not the forefront of his focus and preparation.
Bowman had to get out of the car last week at Circuit of the Americas, and was later diagnosed with vertigo, leading to Alfredo getting the call to race. Alfredo is one of the Chevrolet simulator drivers, an important behind the scenes role, in addition to his full-time ride in the O’Reilly Series for Viking Motorsports.
Alfredo says he isn’t putting any selfish thoughts into this role.
“I try not to because I don’t think it works out for people when they put that kind of pressure on themselves,” Alfredo said during a press conference on Friday at Phoenix. “This isn’t an audition. It’s about filling in and doing a good job for this team.
“I’m focused on executing well for them and if something of it comes down the road, that’s awesome, but most importantly, I have a job to do and I’m focused on them. This is a cool opportunity, and not a lot of people get it, so I do want to make the most of it but this is just about executing for them this weekend.”
When asked if this could open up a Hendrick ride somewhere down the road, Alfredo again deferred to the job, and to his work this season at Viking Motorsports.
“I have no expectations of anything like that,” Alfredo said. “This is a one race opportunity and I’m focused on this one race. We’ll see where it leads but I have a full-time opportunity in the O’Reilly Series that I’m focused on this afternoon and tomorrow so I’m just going one race at a time.”
Alfredo is very cognizant of how unfortunate this is for Bowman.
“It’s hard for me to be excited because it’s hard for me to imagine what he is feeling,” Alfredo said. “A lot of people are asking me how excited I am and I’m not excited to have to fill in for someone who isn’t in their own car this week.
“But it is a huge opportunity for me to do a good job and turn some heads but I don’t feel like I have to prove anything to anybody. I don’t think they would have picked me if they didn’t think I could do it.
“It’s not about that. It’s about doing what is asked of me and doing a good job of filling in. It’s exciting for me because my career has been challenging but working for them on the sim side has been a privilege and I take a lot of pride in what I do for them, It’s a lot of sitting in a dark room without windows and I do it because I want to see them get better and you always hope it could lead to something, but not like this. … I’m going to try to soak it in, even though it’s been a little chaotic, but I feel like everyone does dream of working with Hendrick Motorsports and all the men and women who make it possible.”
Alfredo had a full-time Cup Series run back in 2021 with Front Row Motorsports but that was with the previous generation of Cup car. He has seven starts in the NextGen car, all but two of them coming on superspeedways, with Live Fast Motorsports and Beard Motorsports.
From a logistical standpoint, Alfredo is a similar size as Bowman, and will actually be wearing one of his fire suits. The simulator is ‘extremely realistic’ but he also concedes there are ‘tools you use in the car’ that isn’t in the simulator.
These are switches and fans.
“All the laps I’ve run actually make me confident of where I need to be behind the wheel but racing is totally different,” Alfredo said. “The ambient temperature changing and rubber being laid down, those things are different, but those are comparable to all the races I’ve run here in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, so I have a pretty good basis of what to expect as far as that goes.”
Alfredo says he didn’t have to mentally prepare because his job at Hendrick and Chevrolet is to always be prepared. From there, it was just doing the homework the team assigned him to over the past week. He says he’s not nervous now, and maybe he will be on Sunday, but mostly because Hendrick Motorsports has prepared him appropriately.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how the sim correlates because now I am excited to get back to the sim on Monday and make it better for next time,” Alfredo said. “It’s not the championship race anymore but with the Chase format, you can’t throw any race away, and the 48 team has had a challenging start to the year,
“So I just want to help them out and build a notebook.”
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