Ryan Preece sits 26th in the standings and must win either at Daytona or Darlington the next two weeks to make the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.
But that's not the only thing on his mind going into Daytona, possibly his best shot to earn his first career Cup win. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver is also looking for a ride for next season. He's the only SHR Cup driver whose 2025 plans haven't been solidified in the months since SHR announced in May that it would cease operations after this year.
Preece also heads to Daytona with memories of a year ago when his wild Daytona flip captured the spotlight. He was back in the spotlight a little bit again after Richmond when Ricky Stenhouse Jr . turned Preece, setting up the dramatic finish.
Preece sat down Saturday at Michigan with FOX Sports to discuss Daytona, the wreck, his season and the Stenhouse incident.
Are you looking for a win to get in the playoffs or is it more let's just keep running better and improving?
With the situation that we're in right now, your best opportunity [to win] is going to be Daytona — and how you attack that race? You can attack it multiple ways. But one way is race for stage points, put yourself at risk of something happening early and taking you out of that race and taking away that opportunity to be there at the end. Or kind of hang around like we used to do way back and wait for that wreck. The tough part about it all is it seems like that wreck seems to be happening later and later, probably with two, three laps to go. I haven't really decided yet on how we're going to attack that. But going into Daytona, I think everybody at SHR, all of us, are looking at it as an opportunity to sneak your way into the playoffs. I'm not really sure yet, but you can have a good points [day], stay there by attacking stages and having a good finish, that can seem to help you for three, four, five, six races.
Do points matter now?
Just from trying to be top-23 or top-22 in points. That [35-point] penalty [earlier this year] and various different things certainly hurt us. I would like to finish this season out right. I would say since Dover [in May], it's been a bit of a struggle for us. It would be nice to get that train back on the tracks and end the year the way I'd like to end it.
When you look back at Daytona a year ago, do you look at it and say, "I was running really well until everything happened" or does what happened in that wreck sour everything?
The superspeedways have been really good for our organization. I do enjoy drafting, the whole chess match about it. It's the fuel strategy side of things [that frustrates]. It seems like even this year, Stage 1, Stage 2, we're really good. And even though we are trying to save, that last stop seems to put us behind the 8-ball and in Stage 3, with the last 20 or so laps, everybody's pushing a little bit more, and it's a lot more challenging to go from 20th or 25th or 15th to the front row to put yourself in contention to win. I would say we've done a pretty decent job on the racing side. And working on the strategy, we've been trying to figure out how to make sure we have enough fuel mileage to put us in those positions at the end of the races to where we're not trying to come from behind and possibly being at risk of getting wrecked. But the wreck, when I go to a superspeedway, and I feel like a lot of us race-car drivers are numb to those sort of things. And I feel like the longer it goes to when the accident happened, the more it really sets in how big it was. But when I pull through the tunnel and go to Daytona, my feelings don't change as far as strapping in.
The highlights are going to be shown on the screens. Will you turn away and not watch it? Or do you just ignore it?
I don't know if you would say it's traumatic or not. I do wonder if somebody like Ricky Rudd or whatnot, when he looks back to his [1984] wreck, if he kind of looks at it the same way I do. That's interesting to me. I kind of look at it from a different perspective of how does this person feel about it? But as far as how I feel about the wreck, I'm very, very blessed and happy that I was able to survive and not put my wife or my child in a tough situation. Because those are some thoughts that you think about now where selfishly before, when you'd wreck, you'd just get out of the car and move on. But now there's other things to think about.
Your wife wasn't there last year, right? Will she be there this year?
No, [she wasn't there]. ... Before, I didn't have a motorhome. But after that wreck, because my wife was home and a 2-week-old baby, that was when I ended up pulling the trigger and buying a motorhome from Campers Inn. And so now I drive it to Daytona. I drive it to Talladega. A little bit of a drive, but it's worth having my family there.
How would you characterize how this season has gone?
It's been trying. Last year, I felt like we had our ups, we had our downs, but we learned from some of those. It's certainly been challenging. I'm happy that [crew chief] Chad [Johnston] and the team is certainly fighting for it and continually trying to make the car better. There is no quit, which is what you want. But what I'd like to do is see more speed on our side. It seems like always during races, we can drive forward, but starting in such a hole [from poor qualifying], that seems to be a problem. It's tough to say. I felt like at the beginning of the season, we had opportunity, we were kind of definitely moving forward. But, man, it's been a challenge. I definitely have Chad's back, and hopefully we can turn it around here ... and have some speed, have some strength when it counts.
At Richmond, what the heck happened at the end with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.?
I talked to Ricky. I wasn't trying to hold him up. I know he was 16th, trying to chase William Byron down. I was 20th, or whatever it was, and trying to catch Chris Buescher , and I know Noah [Gragson] had fresher tires because I could see what was going on in my rearview mirror. At that point, with two [laps] to go, going into Turn 1, I wasn't going to race him off of Turn 2. He said he got loose and it locked the left front up. And that can happen with these cars when you crank a bunch of front [brake] bias in it. He had no intentions of wrecking his day. I had no intentions of wrecking my day. Just a bad deal.
How are you doing as far as plans for next year?
One thing I've worked on, which has been the struggle throughout my career, is having sponsors. I'm lucky to have partners like United Rentals and Mohawk Northeast, RaceChoice and many others that have supported me, so I continue to try and do my best for them and work through that process. But as far as what I'm doing, I'm not really sure. The biggest challenge in my career has been the timing of a lot of things with speed, and it's tough. A lot of us all talk about it — there's only so much, so many things you can do. You can't drive a slow car fast right now, and the biggest thing is trying to find speed and put that speed together. Because when you have speed, it just opens up that box and opportunity. So I'm not sure yet.
Some drivers focus on driving and let their management handle negotiations and stuff. Are you able to do that?
I'm really hands-on with a lot of things. This is just who I am when it comes to so many things in life, and a baby and my wife that depend on me to provide for them, I guess more or less I look for whatever this next opportunity is, I want to make sure it's the right thing for my family, to take care of my wife, take care of my child. And also, just mentally. This is a grueling, grinding sport. It is not easy, and you can get kicked down and kicked in the ribs pretty hard a lot. I want to make sure that mentally, it's going to be an opportunity — I'm up for the challenge by all means, and certainly I'm very mentally tough, but I want to make sure I see something that is going to be a success.
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @ bobpockrass .
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