Parker Reztlaff‘s sophomore season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series has been an up and down one.
The Jordan Anderson Racing driver has shown a lot of speed at times. He doubled his top fives from last year in just the first two races of the season, and he also picked up his first career NXS pole at Richmond Raceway.
However, the Rhinelander, Wis,, native has also had horrible luck, failing to finish eight of the 25 races so far. He only had four DNFs in all of last year. He’s currently 18th in Xfinity points and would need to win the regular season finale this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway to meet his goal of making the playoffs.
On the bright side, Retzlaff made the first two NASCAR Cup Series starts of his career this season. The second start came at Daytona International Raceway, where he pushed Harrison Burton to the win before his No. 62 Beard Motorsports machine crossed the line in seventh. The finish sparked controversy though, as Retzlaff pushed Burton past fellow Chevrolet driver Kyle Busch.
Frontstretch spoke with Retzlaff in early September at Atlanta Motor Speedway, where he discussed the Daytona controversy, his bad luck, what the Richmond pole mean to him and if he wants to move up to Cup full time.
Michael Massie, Frontstretch: Did that strong run in the Cup race at Daytona help your confidence, superspeedway skills?
Parker Retzlaff: Yeah, I think it’s always good when you can run good. Especially in a Cup race like that. We’ve ran good this year, just haven’t had the luck to finish these races. Hopefully, we can turn all that around, we can show the speed this team’s had.
Massie: What happened to the car at Darlington? I saw you guys had a problem.
Retzlaff: We broke a fuel cable lap 1. It’s just, I don’t know. It’s just so unlucky to break it as soon as the race started. I mean, it could’ve happened in practice. It could’ve happened in qualifying, and we would’ve been able to fix it. But of course with the way our luck’s been this year, it breaks lap 1, turn 1.
Massie: Did you see all the conspiracies going around on the internet about it?
Retzlaff: Yeah, it’s just like Daytona, the stuff that I dealt with. The fans always come up with some speculation of what they think is going on.
Massie: How does this year compare to last year plus the goals you had going into this year?
Retzlaff: My goal was to make the playoffs, so it’s looking like that is dwindling down at the chances, unless we win here today [at Atlanta]. We’re still confident we can get it done. But just with the bad luck we’ve had and DNFs have made it really hard to make it.
Massie: Are you signed back with JAR for next year, or are you still working on your plans?
Retzlaff: It all comes down to Team Dillon Management and what FunkAway wants to do. I would love to be back, but once again, it comes down to what’s best for their business and whatever Team Dillon Management puts me in.
Massie: How did the deal come about to run the Cup races this year?
Retzlaff: Once again, it all comes down to FunkAway and Team Dillon Management. I got a call that I was gonna do it and then just kind of went to get everything ready.
Massie: That No. 62 car, is Brendan Gaughan still involved with it?
Retzlaff: Yeah, he was still there last week or whatever at Daytona. I’ve known him for a little bit. I grew up doing the off road stuff, and that’s what he did a couple years ago. I knew him from that, and my dad knew him, but we never really were close. But he’s a very good guy, and he was there that weekend.
Massie: He’s a character, isn’t he?
Retzlaff: Oh, yeah.
Massie: What would you say has done more for your stock this year? Winning the pole at Richmond, or the Daytona Cup race, running up there in the top five?
Retzlaff: I mean, I don’t really know what is — the problem is just the Cup race is so much bigger, but it’s also at Daytona. So it’s all kind of a little bit of luck involved also to miss those wrecks.
I think the Xfinity pole, I was very happy about that, just because it was my main series and feeling like we didn’t have the same budget as those big teams that we beat for the pole. We got the pole by, I think, almost a tenth of a second over the whole field.
It was definitely a big confidence boost, and it just showed the hard work we’ve put in.
Massie: Richmond’s a driver’s racetrack too, right? Like your talent is on full display, right?
Retzlaff: Yeah, we got the pole, and it wasn’t like we just fell right away. I led [27] laps of the first stage, and then we, just not being in that position, just didn’t have the brakes that needed to be in it. Just created a really bad brake shake in it, and it kind of threw us out of the game.
Massie: If a Cup team came calling, would you feel ready to make that jump, or do you feel like you need more time in Xfinity?
Retzlaff: I think there would have to be a lot of talking done. In my mind, I’m not in a rush to go into the Cup Series full time. I would love to do, once again, these one-off races and do a couple races a year, but I’m not in any rush to go be there full time.
Massie: After the Cup race at Daytona, right away, there was a little bit of bashing. But then, it seemed like a lot of the fanbase really came to support you after that. What was it like living through that in the weeks following?
Retzlaff: I hate being the person to cause controversy, so I didn’t like it at all. But like I said earlier, the fans always speculated everything that was going on, when really there was nothing bad going on. I just didn’t want to come out and talk about it or bring more light to it than I feel like there needed to be.
I feel like I did everything I should’ve done for FunkAway and myself, and I didn’t think there was really a need to have an explanation about it.
Massie: I don’t know if you saw, but Kyle Busch came out and really spoke up for you. How did that feel to have a two-time Cup champion, future Hall of Famer speak good about you?
Retzlaff: I think, just with my relationship with TDM and RCR, I wish I would’ve — I mean, I would’ve loved to have pushed Kyle Busch to a win. But it just wasn’t in the position to get there and help him.
I was happy to see [that] when I saw it last weekend. I’m happy and just ready to move on.
Massie: It’s the end of the era of NBC doing Xfinity races. The CW is taking over. Do you have any thoughts on the broadcast changes?
Retzlaff: No, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t get to watch the broadcasts anyways, unless I watch it back the next week. It doesn’t — I mean, I feel like as long as good as the broadcast is good for the fans and they can see everything that’s going on, it doesn’t matter to me.
Massie: Just show up and drive, right?
Retzlaff: Oh, yeah.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020. Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.