Last week’s winner in the Daytona International Speedway regular season finale, RFK Racing’s Ryan Preece was still grinning Saturday afternoon in Darlington. The 35-year old Connecticut native rallied from 17th place in the standings before the race to hoisting a trophy in Victory Lane afterward – making up 31 points in the standings to claim that final championship position.
This Sunday marks his first ever appearance in the Chase and he likes his chances, especially considering he’s coming off such a big win — the first points-paying victory of his career
“I’m happy I have my voice back, well, kind of anyways,’’ said Preece, the driver of the No. 60 RFK Ford Mustang. “I definitely felt like I made it a heck of a week, but it’s business as usual. It’s nice to know the final 10 weeks we’re racing for something. We’ll try to go on a run. We definitely have momentum on our side.”
Preece has scored top-10 finishes in three of the last five races and led laps both in a ninth place finish at New Hampshire two weeks ago and at Daytona. Even 100 points down to the championship leader Hamlin as the points re-set, he’s going into the weekend feeling as optimistic as he possibly can. As the most recent race winner, no one has more momentum.
“How you feel as a race car driver when you show up every week, that is real,’’ Preece said of the momentum. “You show up and if you’ve had three or four weeks where you’ve wrecked in a row, I mean, the month of June it felt like I couldn’t do anything right and if you think it doesn’t affect you as a driver, you’re lying to yourself. You’re just going into a race thinking, ‘Man, I just want to finish this one.’
“So, for me, being aggressive – Loudon is the one I’ll look at because we had a strong car there and we were around the top five, top three all day for the most part. So, that’s why when I look at Darlington I think, why not? If we can pick up where we left off last week and have a strong run here, who knows?”
*OF NOTE. …. NASCAR formally recognized NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver Jeremy Clements for becoming the series all-time starts leader. In June he eclipsed Kenny Wallace’s mark (547) for most green flags in the series and goes into Saturday night’s race at his home track, Darlington, extending his record to 555 races.
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