DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Even with a new points system, a new postseason format and a new structure for advancing to The Chase in place this season, Ryan Preece gave the NASCAR Cup Series field one last blast of win and you’re in.
Against the pressure-packed odds and with a race car that spent one almost-fateful moment Saturday night sliding through the well-manicured trioval grass, Preece upended the playoff order with a long-awaited first points-paying win in NASCAR’s big leagues. The 35-year-old journeyman overcame a 31-point prerace deficit to snatch the last Chase berth from Shane van Gisbergen, converting a clutch last-lap move at Daytona International Speedway and giving RFK Racing two entrants into the 10-race championship pursuit.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Daytona
Characteristic of Preece’s hardscrabble short-track roots, the No. 60 Ford team persevered in a regular-season finale when max tenacity was a prerequisite. Turns out, that gritty style that’s been sharpened by years of tearing up the Modified Tour’s bullrings seems to apply to Daytona’s high banks just as well.
“If I was in a street fight, my knuckles would be pretty tore up right now,” Preece said, noting how the race nearly turned when his spin coincided with an SVG stage win. “It was much like what I told you, it was going to be a heavyweight fight. That was the first round. Lucky for me there was two more. I answered that call. I went and we got second in the next stage with damage. Then we put ourselves in position to win the race, and we did.
“It just comes down, no different than my career a lot of times where one door shuts and we break down the next door, even if it’s locked. I’m going to kick through it.”
Preece’s history with the 2.5-mile speedway has been a star-crossed one. He finished this year’s Daytona 500 in reverse after a last-lap incident, wound up on his roof in the previous year’s edition of the “Great American Race,” and his violent flip during the 2023 running of the summertime Coke Zero Sugar 400 left him bruised, but with a renewed resolve to come back stronger. “That’s called redemption at this place, man,” his No. 60 team told him on Saturday’s cool-down lap.
When reminded of that crash three years ago, Preece produced a photo on his cellphone of himself with his daughter, Rebecca, the next day after that melee. He said the image was a point of reflection through the week as the circuit returned to the World Center of Speed.
“To me, that showed me how lucky I am, but how bad I want it, how bad my family wants it,” Preece said. “Yeah, I mean, every day I’m very thankful to be racing in the Cup Series. It’s not easy. Some people have an easier path than others. Every day I’d wake up and say, yeah, I wish I had it easy as well, but I am thankful to hell that I’ve had to fight for everything I’ve worked for and everything that I’ve won and everything.”
Preece & Co. stuck to their straightforward prerace game plan — stay on offense — but the road to Daytona salvation nearly took a dire detour at the end of the opening stage. Within sight of the green-checkered flag, Kyle Larson’s No. 5 Chevrolet nudged Preece’s RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher from the lead on the 35th lap and their contact collected the No. 60 Ford, knocking it from third position into the infield.
Preece righted the car and was scored eighth at the stage end, but the three-car fracas cleared the way for van Gisbergen to secure a stage victory and the 10 points that came with it. After relaying to crew chief Derrick Finley that the damage seemed minimal, Preece offered some assurance: “Well, that wasn’t ideal. … We’ll be all right. Give me the ball there, Derrick, and we’ll get her back.”
Preece was mired back in 38th for the Stage 2 start, but the team’s efforts were redoubled.
“The one thing our 60 team has from top to bottom is a lot of grit,” Finley said. “I mean, we don’t give up. We fight until the bitter end. We don’t care if we’re running 30th, we’re going to run and fight and get a 10th place out of the car. We fight. That’s just the way we are. I played sports my whole life, played football through college. Obviously as soon as I was out of college, I came out here. I’ve competed my whole life. It’s in my nature. The guys around me are the same way, every one of ’em. Ryan is, too, obviously. Ryan has a lot of fight. That’s a good thing.”
That resilience came through in a midrace drive back to the front. After Finley calculated the team’s fuel-management strategy, Preece did the rest with a second-place finish in Stage 2, offsetting the net loss from the opening segment. “All right boys, let’s fight,” Preece said with emphasis on the team’s radio.
MORE: Chase field is set | Updated Cup Series standings
A split in pit strategies jumbled the final stage, but Preece emerged among the front-runners, providing a big bump and boost forward to fellow Ford driver Zane Smith, then sidestepping him to grab the No. 1 spot with 10 laps left in regulation. When Carson Hocevar’s crash moments later knocked him from contention and sent the event to overtime, it was Smith who seemed poised to break through and take the role of Chase spoiler. Van Gisbergen’s late dive to pit road for fuel provided Preece an extra points buffer, and his momentum on the last lap of OT kept the No. 60 clear of the backstretch calamity that erupted behind him.
Preece took no chances when the caution flag came out nearly a half-lap before the checkers, steaming to the start/finish line. He relished every moment that came after, from the jubilant radio exclamations, the smoky burnout and the drive to Victory Lane for the first time at Daytona. Brad Keselowski, co-owner of his RFK Racing team, was there to greet him.
“He’s kept his drive, kept his fire. He’s putting the work in. That persistence I think has come to fruition with just a terrific night for him,” Keselowski said. “It’s such a clutch moment for Ryan, to come in and be however many points behind the playoff, Chase thing here. To just drive a great race, go get him a win, with everything on the line, those are nights that you remember, and those are nights that are really special for him but really special for everyone on this team.”
Preece made use of his phone in two other instances in his post-race press conference. One was to acknowledge the dizzying amount of texts from well-wishers that he’d yet to fully digest, but the other was to herald his arrival to the track’s media center.
Preece walked in with the Coke bottle-shaped winner’s trophy cradled in one hand, and his phone in the other. From the tinny speaker played a slice of AM radio gold, Elton John’s “Rocket Man” — a tune he’s adopted as his walk-out music during driver introductions. Preece admitted his stewardship of the song was a nod to another Ryan — Newman — who also shares Roush team roots. Saturday night, the nickname seemed to fit its current keeper.
“I did say that Derrick and RFK gave me a rocket,” Preece said. “We took it to the moon.”