DAYTONA BEACH — Anthony Alfredo will not participate in the Daytona 500 after all.
After finishing 18th in the second Duel qualifying race Thursday, Feb. 12, he thought he had clinched the final non-chartered spot on the grid for Sunday’s main event. He cried tears of joy and talked about how not making last year’s race haunted him until now.
Then, a nightmare occurred.
He failed post-race inspection, disqualifying his finish and thus stripping him of that final open position. Instead, BJ McLeod gets it after he placed 19th, right behind Alfredo, in the second Duel.
Alfredo had a transaxle cooling hose and a driver cooling hose that were not properly attached on his No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet. They need to be airtight but weren’t.
“Usually, they’re riveted and, as well, they’re taped,” NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran said. “There’s many ways of taping them. Obviously, different qualities of tape and so on. And unfortunately, this one was only taped, and the tape didn’t hold at all.”
Alfredo will not be able to appeal the DQ because it happened during qualifying.
“Do we know how it came off? No,” Moran said “… If anything is found like this during the season, it would be a DQ in a race. We’ve been consistent with that, and we always will be, because there are some reasons why something like this could come loose or fall off.”
In his No. 78 Live Fast Motorsports Chevy, McLeod will make his sixth Daytona 500 start. It will be his first since 2023.
“Any small, open team, we don’t like to have these problems,” Moran said, “but we do have to do our job — make sure there’s parity amongst the field and also parity amongst people trying to make the 500.”
NASCAR does not announce whether the infraction was perceived as intentional or unintentional.
When is 2026 Daytona 500?
- Date: Sunday, Feb. 15
- Start time: 2:30 p.m. ET
- TV channel: Fox
- Streaming: Fubo (free trial)
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Anthony Alfredo DQ'd from Duels, loses Daytona 500 spot to BJ McLeod