When the dust had settled on the second America 250 Florida Duel qualifying race for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, Beard Motorsports and Anthony Alfredo were in the 41-car field.
Alfredo had qualified the No. 62 Chevrolet for the "Great American Race" in 2024, but he was unable to do so in 2025.
Live Fast Motorsports' B.J. McLeod, whom Alfredo beat by one spot to finish 18th and lock himself into the main event, congratulated Alfredo and the No. 62 team in the pits afterward. Little did he know that he would be the one for whom congratulations were due.
After the race, the No. 62 car was discovered to have a transaxle cooling hose loose and a driver cooling hose that was not properly attached. NASCAR disallowed Alfredo's result, making McLeod the top driver of a non-chartered (open) car from the second Duel race and locking him into the field for the first time since 2023. Alfredo and Beard Motorsports were removed.
Beard Motorsports not competing at Atlanta
Beard Motorsports generally run the superspeedway races at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway and have done so since 2017, although they did not run the second Daytona race a year ago and added races at Texas Motor Speedway and Indianapolis Motor Speedway instead.
They have also only competed at Atlanta Motor Speedway (now EchoPark Speedway) once since it was reconfigured into a superspeedway after the 2021 season, and that was back in the summer of 2023.
As expected, they are not on the entry list for this weekend's race at Atlanta.
Only two of the nine open cars on the Daytona 500 entry list are set to run at Atlanta, though it was set to be three before Garage 66 and Casey Mears withdrew from the event. McLeod is set to return, as is NY Racing Team's J.J. Yeley. Yeley, like Alfredo, was eliminated in the second Duel race.
Both the No. 78 Chevrolet and the No. 44 Chevrolet are locked into this Sunday's 260-lap race around the four-turn, 1.54-mile (2.478-kilometer) Hampton, Georgia oval.
Fox's live coverage of the Autotrader 400 is set to begin at 3:00 p.m. ET from EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta) this Sunday, February 22. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and catch all of the action!