By Luis Torres, Staff Writer
NASCAR Xfinity Series regular Parker Retzlaff may have scored his first career top-10 finish in NASCAR’s premier division, but it’s his road to a seventh-place result that folks will be looking back fondly for years to come.
During Saturday’s chaotic Coke Zero Sugar 400, the 21-year-old driver from Rhinelander, Wisconsin escaped all the big wrecks and blow overs to put himself in excellent position of bringing Beard Motorsports’ No. 62 team home with a strong result.
“It was just really aggressive. Everyone was pushing as hard as they can,” said Retzlaff. “It just very aggressive, but that’s how this racing gets and that’s why you see wrecks like you do. You have to be lucky and miss the wrecks, but also have a fast enough car to be there at the end.”
Retzlaff did that, but played a key role in Harrison Burton’s maiden NASCAR Cup Series win.
Race leader Kyle Busch had taken the white flag, ahead of Burton and Christopher Bell. Not far back was Retzlaff, who was sandwiched between Cody Ware and John Hunter Nemechek for the fourth spot. From there, Retzlaff began drafting with Burton to escape the three-wide battle and both chose the outside line.
As the field headed down the “Daytona Superstretch” for the final time, Retzlaff’s Chevrolet really pushed Burton’s No. 21 Ford aggressively to the top spot entering Turn 3. Much to the potential chagrin of team and OEM orders as Beard Motorsports has a technical partnership with Richard Childress Racing (Busch’s team).
Despite being told over the radio to not push the “Blue Oval” branded car of Burton, orders became irrelevant for the young Wisconsin racer as he moved his “Bowtie Brigade” powered machine up to second. Such revelation was short lived as he wasn’t able to keep the position and became a game of survival going forward.
It began when Retzlaff and Bell made contact, killing any momentum he had and fell back. Worsen once Ware, who was fighting for a career-best fourth, moved up the track which resulted him rubbing fenders with Ty Gibbs, sending the latter to door slam Retzlaff with the impact sending him into the wall.
As Burton went on to celebrate his maiden win and Wood Brothers Racing’s 100th Cup win, Retzlaff came home in seventh. Saturday night’s result marked the Beard organization’s seventh career top-10 finish and second of 2024 when Anthony Alfredo finished sixth at Talladega…
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