Preece already set for career year, but aiming higher still

Ryan Preece has never qualified for the NASCAR Cup Series postseason, but with the end of this year's regular season in sight, he has his first realistic opportunity to do so. And in the process, he can take a spot away that pundits didn’t have him penciled in for.

“I don’t think it was on everyone’s bingo cards for the [No.] 60 car or myself to come out and be as competitive as we’ve been this year,” Preece said this week. “I think that’s from just a bunch of different people. People with experience, people without experience, and going into a new situation with a completely open mind, and it’s worked out really well.”

Preece and Derrick Finley have the group sitting 20 points from a spot on the provisional playoff grid but he is 14th in the overall championship standings. A victory two weeks ago by Shane van Gisbergen in Mexico pushed Preece to the outside looking in. He had been floating around the bubble.

It is the first year for Preece driving an RFK Racing car, and his sixth in the series. With more than four months of racing still to go, Preece is set for a career year having already surpassed his single season high in top-10 finishes (seven) and his next top five finish will do the same. The highest Preece has ever finished in points is 23rd.

“This is 100 percent the most realistic opportunity,” Preece said. “I used to go into superspeedways pretty much saying, ‘Hey, this is going to be our chance. We need to try and win.’ Where (now) every single week, I feel like we are continuing to be better as a team, working on chemistry, working on communication, and we’re solidly doing all the things that matter. Now it’s about continuing to put ourselves in position to execute and be there at the end.

“I feel like there were a couple of times this year, obviously Talladega, but Texas was going to be a place that we were running really well and came really close to having things fall our way during a pit cycle, and it didn’t. But if we can continue to do the things that we’re doing, we’re going to have those opportunities, and when those opportunities come, we need to be ready and execute. That is something that I have full faith in this No. 60 Kroger Ford Mustang RFK group is that we’re going to do everything right.”

It is not impossible to overcome a 20-point deficit in nine weeks. Those 20 points could come as easily as winning both stages in a race. But Preece isn’t counting points or weighing different scenarios and pathways forward. Well, all except one.

“I feel like we’re in a must-win situation because if you play the points game and give up the opportunity from a strategy perspective to put yourself on the front row for one of those late race restarts and control the race, and then you go into Daytona and there is a new winner or whatnot, there is too many unknowns,” Preece said. “It’s really too competitive of a series to bank on that, hey, we can catch Alex [Bowman] or Bubba [Wallace] and put all our chips on that. It’s too risky.

“So, for us, I feel like we’ve continued to be consistent, that’s for sure, and the thing that I really like about the next, I would say, three or four weeks, is Atlanta is a place that is superspeedway style racing and I feel like after going there earlier this season, [I'm] really comfortable going there and unloading really fast. But the road courses, after Mexico, I feel like something clicked. So, I’m really eager to get to Chicago and get to Sonoma and see if we can pull an upset there.”

Preece is 0-204 in his Cup Series career.

Bowman is sitting on the bubble, 16th, ahead of Preece. Wallace sits 15th with a 29-point advantage.

Preece, AJ Allmendinger, Erik Jones, and Kyle Busch are the first four drivers under the playoff grid cutline. Atlanta (now EchoPark Speedway) and Chicago are the next two races on the circuit followed by Sonoma and Dover.