● Round 3 of 4. Beard Motorsports returns to NASCAR Cup Series competition for the third of four races this season during Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. It will be the family-owned team’s 29th start since its Cup Series debut at the 2017 Daytona 500, and its 13th overall start on the iconic, 2.5-mile Daytona oval. While five different drivers have previously wheeled the No. 62 Beard Chevrolet since its inaugural season, with a particular focus on Daytona and its sister track, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, the team welcomes its sixth driver in 21-year-old Parker Retzlaff, who will be making his second career Cup Series start and first at Daytona Saturday night. Retzlaff made his Cup Series debut two weekends ago on the .75-mile Richmond (Va.) Raceway oval in the No. 66 MBM Motorsports entry, which resulted in a 35th-place finish.
● Retzlaff Superspeedway Prowess. When it comes to NASCAR’s superspeedway tracks, Retzlaff has an acumen that belies his age. While Saturday night marks his first Cup Series start on a superspeedway, he has a combined five NASCAR Xfinity Series starts on the Daytona and Talladega ovals, and another three on the 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway oval that has produced superspeedway-style racing since its reconfiguration prior to the 2022 season. In his three Xfinity Series starts at Daytona, all resulted in finishes of seventh or better – fourth in February 2023, seventh last August, and third this past February. Best of his two Xfinity Series starts at Talladega was his seventh-place run, with two laps led, in April 2023. And best among his three Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta was this past February’s fifth-place finish. Retzlaff will also be competing in Friday night’s Xfinity Series race at Daytona in the No. 31 Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport Chevrolet he’s driven fulltime the past two seasons.
● FunkAway. A new partner will adorn the No. 62 Beard Motorsports Chevrolet for the first time this weekend. FunkAway, a line of odor-eliminating products, steps up to the Cup Series after partnering with Retzlaff for a majority of his 63 Xfinity Series starts since 2022. FunkAway, the Extreme Odor Eliminator, was created by FunkAway owners Dan Zbynski and Kyle Bolke, who loved to coach and play sports but hated the odors that came with it. The pair set out to find a solution that did not just cover up odors but eliminate them completely. FunkAway eliminates odors using a unique OM Complex™ that attacks odors on a molecular level, encasing and eliminating the source of bad smells.
● Family Matters. The 2024 NASCAR season is Beard Motorsports’ eighth participating in the Cup Series. Linda Beard, along with her children, Amie Beard-Deja and Mark Beard Jr., carry on the pursuit of this passion project that belonged to their late family patriarch, Mark Beard Sr. The No. 62 NASCAR Cup Series team is just one of their family-owned entities. Beard Oil Distributing is the foundation of the Beard family-owned business portfolio and is recognized as a women-owned certified organization through the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).
● For the Record. Best of Beard Motorsports’ 12 previous outings on the Daytona oval was Noah Gragson’s fifth-place run in the August 2022 Coke Zero Sugar 400. The team has three other top-10 runs there, topped by a pair of seventh-place finishes by Brandan Gaughan in July 2017 and the 2020 Daytona 500, respectively, and an eighth-place finish by Gaughan in the August 2020 Coke Zero Sugar 400. Anthony Alfredo wheeled the No. 62 Chevrolet in its previous two races this year at Daytona and Talladega, finishing sixth in the latter event.
● Powered for Greatness. As it always has, the No. 62 Funkaway Chevrolet Camaro will be powered by an ECR-built engine. Beard Motorsports has leveraged the power of ECR Engines since making its NASCAR debut at the 2017 Daytona 500 and has made the most of the power supplied through the partnership. During its eight seasons of racing, Beard Motorsports has participated in 28 Cup Series events, scoring one top-five finish and six top-10s.
Parker Retzlaff, Driver of the No. 62 FunkAway Chevrolet Camaro:
Before taking the wheel for your second career Cup Series start and first in the No. 62 FunkAway Chevrolet for Beard Motorsports, you got your first taste of the NextGen car two weekends ago at Richmond. What was that experience like for you?
“I made my Cup debut in Richmond just to get some experience and to get some seat time, and to just get the shifting down and all of that, and go to Daytona so we can try to get the best finish we can and be as prepared as I can be. It was a lot of getting experience in what is a new car for me, trying to be more comfortable before we get to Daytona.”
How much more prepared do you feel you are after making the start at Richmond?
“I think it was good because we only get one lap before the race at Daytona, and that will be in qualifying, so I definitely feel more prepared. I know about the shifting and it will feel a lot more natural when I get to qualifying at Daytona rather than it being my first-ever lap in the NextGen car. I think it will make us qualify better and make me more confident before we get there, and it’ll make the overall weekend better.”
You’ll also be competing in Friday’s Xfinity Series race at Daytona. How much do you feel that will help your effort on Saturday night?
“I think any and all experience I can get will help. Learning how to make stuff happen on a superspeedway is important, it’s all a little bit different, but learning how stuff moves and what lane is moving and stuff like that is always beneficial. I think that you’re always learning something when you get in the car at these places, and I think that any experience I can get before the Cup race on Saturday will be beneficial.”
You seem to run really well at the superspeedways. What in your racing background prepared you for that?
“I don’t know what prepared me for superspeedway racing, specifically. It was actually the type of racing I was most worried about going into the Xfinity Series. I have learned that you have to be patient, but you also have to realize when you need to be aggressive to gain spots in the race. We always seem to end up at the wall in a single-file line at the end of those races, so it makes it where you have to be aggressive at times, even if it is just to pick up one spot, but you also can’t make too aggressive of a move or you could end up costing yourself spots.”
You spent some time with crew chief Darren Shaw. How has that helped you?
“We were together all of Richmond weekend and I’ve been to the shop a couple of times just hanging out with him and he is great. I think our communication will be good. We both have the same goal – we’ve talked about our goals and everything for the race, so everything so far seems really, really great with him and I’m just excited and happy to have a guy with his experience behind me.”
What does it mean to get this start in the No. 62 FunkAway Chevrolet for Beard Motorsports?
“I have watched the 62 car. I was a big fan of Brendan (Gaughan) growing up. I used to watch him when he was driving it. I remember him racing when they started the team in 2017, and now it’s amazing that I’m getting the opportunity to drive the same car he did.”
Making your first start at a storied track like Daytona, what does that mean to you?
“Daytona hosts the biggest race of the year for NASCAR and it’s probably one of the more memorable tracks we visit. I think I’ll definitely be a little nervous on race day because it was kind of my dream as a child to race in the NASCAR Cup Series and I will be doing that at Daytona in a Cup car. So I think that it will all hit me on race day, but right now I’m just trying to be as prepared as I can and try to get the team the best finish.”
Event: Coke Zero Sugar 400 (Round 25 of 36)
Time/Date: 7:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 24
Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
Layout: 2.5-mile oval
Laps/Miles: 160 laps/400 miles
Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 35 laps / Stage 2: 60 laps / Final Stage: 65 laps
TV/Radio: NBC / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
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