DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.: Anthony Alfredo certified for the Daytona 500 — no assure for the 24-year-old nicknamed “Fast Pasta” — and wrapped his arms tight round retired driver Brendan Gaughan for a bear hug.
Alfredo was hoisted excessive for a fleeting second earlier than his toes returned to pit street and the jubilation continued. He wiped away tears and hugged everybody he may discover. Over the moon with pleasure, crew proprietor Linda Beard and daughter Amie pulled in Alfredo for an additional embrace and shared just a few congratulatory phrases.
Alfredo put Beard Motorsports again in NASCAR’s greatest spectacle. Yes, he did it for himself as he chases a full-time Cup journey, but in addition for the Beards and the late patriarch of the crew and household, Mark Beard.
The one-car crew races solely a handful of occasions every season and doesn’t personal a constitution, which might guarantee it a spot within the Daytona 500. Beard Motorsports didn’t qualify a 12 months in the past with driver Austin Hill. Missing the race was brutal in any circumstance. But understanding the importance of the race to Mark Beard, who began racing go-karts at 8 years outdated and had his personal NASCAR profession lower brief due to sponsorship woes, made the household resolute in attempting once more in his honor in 2024.
“With Beard Motorsports missing the show last year, I wanted to deliver for them and be the one to put it in and carry on Mark’s legacy,” Alfredo stated. “Linda and Amie want this so bad. I think it was just really cool to accomplish that together.”
Now it’s time for them to make a run at successful the Daytona 500 on Sunday.
“I think dad would be extremely excited and thrilled. Losing dad was very hard,” Aime Beard-Deja stated. “We also have family businesses included in this. But there was no question of it. We had to keep doing it for the legacy of him. It’s for our love, too. It keeps him alive for us. We thrive from it. We love it.”
Beard Motorsports is greater than a Michigan-based race crew; it’s a household enterprise.
Linda and her kids, Amie and Mark Jr., run the crew for the Daytona 500 and three different superspeedway races scheduled for this season.
Beard Motorsports has one full-time worker, crew chief Darren Shaw. Gaughan considers himself the grand poobah of Beard Motorsports, a type of crew cheerleader —- he hosts a NASCAR betting present — and might’t carry himself to make use of a stack of enterprise playing cards, given to him by Mark, that decision him director of race operations. After her husband died, Linda informed Gaughan he may by no means have that title taken away.
“So it stuck,” he stated, laughing.
Mark Beard, who died at 72 in 2021, had a ardour for motorsports and Daytona, and even made a pair of begins in NASCAR’s second-tier sequence within the Nineteen Eighties. Even as he ran Beard Oil Distributing, a third-generation household enterprise primarily based in his hometown of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, his deep love was at all times racing.
He based his Cup crew in 2014, partly to advertise Beard Oil, and didn’t qualify for a handful of Cup races that season. Beard Motorsports took two seasons off earlier than making a run on the 2017 Daytona 500 with Gaughan behind the wheel. Like Alfredo, Gaughan needed to drive in considered one of two qualifying races for the Daytona 500 to make the sector. Beard cobbled collectively a pit crew and an engine from fellow crew proprietor Richard Childress and acquired a automotive from Leavine Family Racing, and Gaughan and his patchwork crew made the race. He completed a stable eleventh.
Not dangerous for a NASCAR debut.
“We come here to not only have a great time, because for us this is a great time, but we come here to be competitive,” Linda stated. “We don’t come here just to sit in the back. We come here to win. What’s in our mind is how good we can get and be.”
Gaughan cracks jokes and retains everybody free however sharing his reminiscences of Mark Beard choke him up. Gaughan’s children have been in Aime’s wedding ceremony final 12 months, and he escorted the widow to the ceremony.
“It was very special for me,” Gaughan stated, pausing, earlier than dabbing tears from his eyes. “They’re great people.”
It didn’t take Alfredo lengthy to determine that out. He is about for simply his third Cup begin since his lone full season in 2021 with Front Row Motorsports.
Unlike some back-marker groups whose Daytona desires hold on a shoestring price range, Beard Motorsports invests in Daytona and its restricted slate of races. Gaughan boasts the crew solely pays for “A motors,” and Alfredo’s No. 62 Chevrolet has a top-of-the-line engine constructed by Earnhardt-Childress Racing.
Alfredo’s considerations about automotive high quality have been soothed by Gaughan. Gaughan famous the Chevy was the kind of automotive that belonged on the aspect of the NASCAR storage the place the elite groups park their haulers, not a second aspect at Daytona the place a lot of the also-rans match.
“I told Alfredo before qualifying, before he even got in the car, ‘Kiddo, I know you did a year in Cup, but this is going to be the nicest Cup car you’ve ever been,’” Gaughan stated.
“You think?” Alfredo requested.
“I know. I know what Darren did. I know what ECR does for us,” Gaughan replied. “When the 62 shows up, people know that the 62 is here.”
Alfredo begins thirty ninth within the 40-car Daytona 500, a race the place beginning place doesn’t imply as a lot as simply hanging round on the finish when an anything-can-happen really feel typically results in upset winners.
“Mark and I came here for probably 40-some years, came to the races,” Linda stated. “He raced here. So that’s emotional to come back here because this is a place he really loved. And so did we. To do this and to do it as many times as we have, it’s a blessing for us because we’re a small team. A lot of people take this for granted that are here.
“We don’t take it for granted, you know?”
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
