DARLINGTON, S.C. — A despondent Young’s Motorsports driver Anthony Alfredo stood outside his hauler after the conclusion of Saturday’s (April 5) NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington Raceway, fists clinched and face beet red.
After what had happened in the event with less than 20 laps to go, the 26-year-old was furious with fellow Xfinity racer Leland Honeyman Jr., who stood only feet away from him.
“I got wrecked by the same idiot that starts stuff all the time,” Alfredo told Frontstretch. “There’s zero qualification for this series anymore, and I’ve made a lot of dumb mistakes, too, but I like to think I learned from them. When you just see the same person making the same mistakes, it’s really disappointing to see even if you try to talk to them and help them.”
With 17 laps to go, both Alfredo and Honeyman were running in the middle of the pack. Alfredo, who had finished fifth in the first stage after taking advantage of fresh tires, was attempting to earn a good points day for the Young’s team. Honeyman, who is entered in a part-time schedule with Cope Family Racing, was in line behind him.
However, upon entering turn 1, Honeyman dove to the inside of Alfredo and slapped the back bumper of bystander Harrison Burton. Alfredo was sent into a spin while the No. 70 of Honeyman slammed the wall. The incident ruined both of their days.
We'll have a sprint to the finish after this incident involving the Nos. 42 and 70. pic.twitter.com/kTH6mfAaIA
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) April 5, 2025
“He drove it in there so deep, I couldn’t believe it,” Alfredo recalled. “I was like, ‘There’s absolutely no way he’s making that corner.’ He ran in straight into the back of the 25 car, then slid down in front of me, then hit the wall, over-corrected and destroyed me, then never held the brake pedal all the way down the track and almost cleaned me out again.
“Somebody else should be driving that race car.”
Alfredo ended his day 31st.
Honeyman, who has earned one top 10 result so far in 2025, finished 37th. He explained what happened from his perspective.
“I don’t know who’s who with the throwbacks,” Honeyman told Frontstretch. “I wasn’t told the 25 was in front of me. I think he had two right side scuffs, so in that scenario, I felt like we could carry turn 1 on entry a lot better than a lot of other people, so, I drove it off in there, but at the same time thinking that the 25 was going to do the same thing.”
While feeling dejected, he wasn’t feeling any more friendly toward Alfredo than vice versa.
“He won’t even talk to me,” Honeyman said only a couple of feet from Alfredo’s wrecked car. “He raced me like an asshole all day. He races everybody like that. You can see it. People are mad. It’s whatever. Race how you want to be raced is what they said in the driver’s meeting today.
“There are driver’s meetings for a reason and some people belong in them. I’m not saying it’s his fault, but he did race like a jackass.”
Ironically, Alfredo said something similar.
“I race people how I want to get raced,” Alfredo said. “Just because someone did something to me doesn’t mean I’m going to do it to them, frankly, because I’d embarrass myself if I did something like that, but people like that don’t know better. He just told one of the guys on my team and asked them why I ran into him. That’s one thing you can’t fix in this world.”
Both drivers were in the special driver’s meeting that had been called by NASCAR after what was seen as an embarrassing showing by the series’ drivers in last weekend’s race at Martinsville Speedway. With much of the talk of the media center about how the youngsters of the series will race moving forward, some questioned if NASCAR needed to place a heavier hand to stop the chaos.
Honeyman, despite his issues today, doesn’t think so.
“I think you know you need people like Anthony in the sport,” Honeyman said. “Just in a sense, it’s what drives the sport, right? People love the Martinsville race, and fans loved it. They like seeing crashed cars which, cool, if that’s what you enjoy, that’s what you enjoy. Other than that, I think that racing people like shit is different. Race with respect. I race people how I want to be raced.”
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT