The finish of the Daytona 500 on Sunday (Feb. 15) left most of the NASCAR Cup Series’ top stars having to wait another year to etch their name onto the Harley J. Earl Trophy.
Chase Elliott, in his 11th 500, finished fourth after leading the field onto the frontstretch. Brad Keselowski settled for fifth in his 17th attempt to win the 500. Kyle Busch was the polesitter and led 19 laps in his 21st running of The Great American Race, but settled for a 15th place finish.
In the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Daytona International Speedway, it was once again Richard Childress Racing versus the field. And, once again, RCR won out as Austin Hill continued to establish himself as maybe the best superspeedway racer of this generation.
Most of the NOAPS field is used to being kept out of the gates of victory lane at Daytona, but one driver came so close to finally notching their first career win. And once again, they were denied.
Brennan Poole was first to the finish line at Talladega Superspeedway in 2016, but a video review showed Elliott Sadler in the lead when the caution lights flashed just a few hundred yards from the end.
It took him another eight years to get another crack at winning in the NOAPS, running side-by-side with Jesse Love coming off turn 4 at Talladega in 2024. Poole gets the initial run off the corner, then Love as they enter the trioval. Anthony Alfredo can push Poole to the lead, but he veers out of line to look for another spot.
“Aw man,” Ryan Blaney mutters under his breath on the broadcast.
On an overtime restart Saturday (Feb. 14), he had another shot. Poole pushed Hill out to the lead and slid into second behind the No. 21 Chevy. Once again, you can tell the announcers are pulling for the 34-year-old to get a fair crack at winning, saying all he needs is Justin Allgaier to give him a push.
A push comes, both from Allgaier and Jordan Anderson. It’s too much. Poole is shuffled out of line and falls back to 12th.
Aw man.
It’s not a win for Poole, but when the smoke cleared from Hill’s celebratory burnout, he was part of a really remarkable day for his team, Alpha Prime Racing.
“I took a shot at it and it didn’t pan out, but it was a lot of fun to be in the mix again, tonight, especially with this team,” Poole said after the race. “It’s a lot of fun to be able to do that and to come out of the gates right away in the first race. It’s going to be a big momentum builder for the rest of the season.”
Poole took the green flag spinning in the infield grass along with his teammate, at least for the day. Alfredo kicked off a wild day for Alpha Prime by failing to qualify in his Viking Motorsports entry, landing him in the No. 4 originally scheduled to be run by Caesar Bacarella.
Just like Poole, Alfredo overcame the lap 1 crash and came home with the team’s best finish of the day in 11th. It capped off a week that saw ‘Fast Pasta’ disqualified in post-race tech of his Duel race, kicking him out of the Daytona 500.
“I’m not gonna lie, in the moment, I was at a pretty low place,” Alfredo said. “But I got refocused this morning, and then it was just another kick in the groin there after qualifying. We had a mechanical issue with our car and Caesar and Tommy [Joe Martins] were kind enough to let me drive their race car, which was fast, competitive. They even let us put all our partners in the car so they were included in a part of it.”
Rookie Lavar Scott had a quiet day up until 21 laps to go, when he spun in the infield grass to avoid a massive pileup. He survived and finished 16th in his first superspeedway start in NASCAR.
You wouldn’t think it based on their strong results the last few seasons, but Alpha Prime is running with far from a hefty budget. Poole estimates they may be in the basement of the series in terms of spending.
“We do a lot with a very small budget,” Poole said. “We’re probably like the 34th- or 35th-largest budget in this field. No leased engines, no sim, none of that stuff, and we find ourselves fighting for ourselves fighting for top fives and top 10s quite often.”
The elimination of ‘win and your in’ means even a superspeedway shocker like Poole hoped for Saturday doesn’t guarantee them a spot in the Chase. But if there’s a series among NASCAR’s top three divisions where a smaller team can race their way into a playoff berth, it’s the O’Reilly Series. Harrison Burton did it last season with AM Racing, following Parker Kligerman with Big Machine Racing, who did it in 2024. Ryan Sieg has never won a race in the series, but has pushed his family-run team to the playoffs four times.
Poole is as clean and consistent as they come in O’Reilly, finishing all but four races last season, and Scott is a highly touted prospect from his time in the ARCA Menards Series. A good driver duo in a pair of cars that finished just outside the top-20 in owner’s points last season. Maybe Martins’ team is alpha primed to sneak up on the field and fight for a Chase position.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.