The smoke and fire that ended Ryan Preece’s day at Dover Sunday was not a result of ‘crappy parts,’ rather it was the fault of the team and bolts that were incorrectly installed.
Sunday Preece, in a Stewart-Haas Racing Mustang, saw smoke entering his cockpit near lap 60. Fearing a fire, he pitted under green. The crew put the fire out, and he returned to the track, but the smoke again rose from the passenger side door. Fearing a fire, Preece pitted again and headed to the garage area.
After trying to diagnose the exact issue, the crew decided not to risk it and parked the car for the day.
“I felt like I was on fire,” Preece said. “I went the first 70 laps just trying to push through and then it got so bad that I couldn’t put my hands on the wheel. I was worried that an oil line or something would melt and then the whole car gets engulfed in fire and I don’t want to be trapped in there having that happen, so I pulled off. “
The issue brought back memories of similar fires that occurred shortly after the Next Gen cars debuted when several Fords suffered issues with the safety foam lining the side panels catching fire. It came to a head at Darlington in September of 2022 when another SHR car being driven by Kevin Harvick caught on fire and he was forced to abandon the flaming car.
“I’m sure it’s just crappy parts on the race car like we’ve seen so many times,” Harvick said at the time. “They haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff. We just let it keep going and keep going.”
After Darlington, NASCAR made several rule changes prior to the following race at Kansas hoping to address the issues. There were no further reports of the foam catching fire in a Ford, or any car.
Wednesday SHR crew chief Drew Blickensderfer, who leads the No. 10 team for Noah Gragson, said the issues weren’t a result of any sort of parts failure.
“That was self-inflicted,” Blickensderfer said. “That was the bolts between the headers and the collectors keeping everything together…They were not installed correctly and it was allowing the collectors to come disattached from the headers, kind of fall on that rocker box and cause an issue…so it was a self-inflicted error, a little change in process that someone didn’t catch and it was close to happening on all of our cars to be honest with you.
“They were unfortunately the victim of it but when we got back to the race shop all of our cars were close to having a similar issue. So obviously that gets rectified quickly. Everything gets torn out of our Kansas cars and fixed.”
Blickensderfer said that there was never any issue with the parts NASCAR was providing to the teams.
“I think NASCAR has done a good job,” he said. “I think us as a group, because it was more relevant for us last year or the year before, we’ve taken a lot of effort to keep that from happening. And knock on wood, I think we’re in a good spot with that. We just have to make sure we clean up our end to make sure the parts are installed correctly.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.