Mt. PLEASANT, Mich. – Beard Motorsports will qualify for the 2025 Daytona 500 at Daytona with driver Anthony Alfredo returning behind the wheel of the Beard Motorsports Chevrolet. The sponsor will be Fortify Building Solutions. Alfredo ran three races for Beard Motorsports in 2024 (one at Daytona, two at Talladega), with a best finish of 6th place at the spring Talladega race. 

More information regarding Beard Motorsports’ plans for the 2025 NASCAR season will be announced at a later date.

Started by the late Mark Beard Sr., Beard Motorsports is owned and operated by the Beard family with Linda Beard at the helm, and her children, Amie Beard-Deja and Mark Beard Jr., overseeing the daily operations. The 2025 season is Beard Motorsports’ ninth participating in select events that make up the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, and the season-opening Daytona 500 will mark the team’s seventh start in the “Great American Race” since making its debut in that event in 2017. 

“It’s an honor to be talking about our ninth season competing in the NASCAR Cup Series,” said Beard-Deja, executive vice president of Beard Motorsports. “This obviously started as a passion project for my dad and has become a labor of love for our family. We put in a lot of hard work and that is evident by the product we bring to the track every time we show up. It’s a credit to the team of people that we have assembled to prepare our racecars, and it all starts with our crew chief Darren Shaw, who has been busy preparing the car for the 2025 Daytona 500.

“We are thrilled to have Anthony Alfredo back behind the wheel of the No. 62 Chevrolet and are very honored to continue the relationship we have started with Fortify Building Solutions. To have that brand continue its support of Beard Motorsports means a lot.”

Amber Balcaen was the fastest of 70 drivers that participated in this week’s two-day ARCA pre-race practice at Daytona International Speedway. Balcaen turned her fast lap, 49.102 seconds/183.292 miles per hour, in a tight draft with her Nitro Motorsports teammate Thad Moffitt and fellow Toyota drivers out of the Venturini Motorsports stable.

The 62nd Annual Daytona ARCA 200 is scheduled for Saturday, February 15, at noon. The race will be televised live on FOX and will be carried live nationwide on select affiliates of the MRN Radio Network. Live timing and scoring data from all on-track activity, including practice on Thursday, February 13, and General Tire Pole Qualifying on Friday, February 14, is available at ARCARacing.com.

In other highlights from the two-day test:

— Eighteen-year-old Chase Pinsonnault made a strong debut in the ARCA Menards Series, timing in second fastest at 49.226 seconds/182.830 miles per hour. Pinsonnault, a third-generation racer, has driven in the ASA STARS National Tour for NASCAR Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar; he will make his first career ARCA Menards Series start in the Daytona ARCA 200.

— Balcaen, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Pinsonnault, from Windsor, Ontario, gave Canadian drivers a sweep of the top two positions for the first time in the history of the pre-season practice runs at Daytona International Speedway.

Greetings race fans. It's Daytona 500 day.
When the green flag drops at 3:18 p.m. today at Daytona, here are some storylines to watch. 

Team alliances
How much will teams work together, if situations on track allow for them to do so? I foresee this being a major strategy, once again, for Chevy, Ford and Toyota. But history has shown the best plans usually are interrupted by the reality of plate racing. Those alliances usually don’t last, especially after cars get knocked out after big wrecks. We’ll see how this plays out and how much it determines the outcome of the race.

Blocking
Brad Keselowski and others have expressed concern about blocking and the major wrecks it is causing this Speedweeks. How much will drivers take that into account when they are making decisions as they battle for the lead and through the field? Hopefullly cooler heads will prevail, but when chasing the checkered flag common sense often goes out the window. We’ll learn this afternoon which side wins out.

One thing is clear after this weekend: Ford has hit a home run by bringing Hailie Deegan on board.

The 18-year-old phenom has a strong racing pedigree, talent to spare, and a great attitude overall. Previously, her detractors have critiqued her willingness to use the chrome horn to get a victory. But in Saturday’s ARCA race, she showed she has the patience to go far in this sport, and not make enemies unnecessarily.

Deegan’s efforts landed her a 2^ndplace finish, sandwiched between two Venturini cars in 1^stand 3^rd, and she was happy with her effort.

“Pretty much at the end there, all I wanted to do was finish. My goal for this race was top three to top-five was a victory for me,” Deegan said. “It is a long season and I have to race against these guys week in and week out. It is best to stay on good terms with them. Second is really a win to me this weekend. Winning the first race would have maybe been a little too high of standards for the rest of the season. Everything would have been downhill. This gives me something to still work towards.”

As I watched Joey Logano’s car turned into a lawn mower, Jimmie Johnson take a brutal hit into the wall, and so many other cars losing sheet metal today, part of me was thinking that this Busch Clash crashfest (which came late in the race after mostly single file racing through the early parts) may be an anomaly. It’s a non-points race, first of the season, etc., and won’t carry over to Sunday’s Daytona 500.

But that part of me is probably wrong. My other half, the realistic one, knows that winning the Daytona 500 is probably going to be the biggest win of their career for most of the drivers on the grid. So while I’m somewhat confident we’ll have more than 6 cars finishing the Daytona 500, don’t be surprised if the crazy blocks and big-time wrecks just keep on coming when the field of 40 takes the green on Feb. 16.