With a few laps to go in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona, Ryan Preece looked poised to control and win the race. Then he got shuffled to the middle lane, got split by the inside and outside, and fell back in the field. Heartbreak for the NASCAR driver.
When Ryan Preece made the move to take over the outside lane, he did it by moving away from his teammate, Chris Buescher. The two RFK Racing drivers were both in the front, but not linked up. Preece led one line, Buescher was second in the other.
Preece had Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott behind him. Not good. Two Chevys are not going to do a Ford any favors at Daytona. And they didn’t do Preece any favors last night.
On his radio after the finish, Ryan Preece vented his frustrations. Understandably, he wasn’t happy with how things played out at the end of the race. Even if he knew why it happened, it was a tough pill to swallow.
“f I had a Ford behind me, we wouldn’t f***ing won that race!” Preece said, via Steven Taranto of CBS Sports. The RFK driver went further.
“I mean, I know why they did it. They did it so the 48 couldn’t get knocked out. Motherf***er!”
Ryan Preece is going to miss the NASCAR Playoffs in what is truly the breakout season of his career. This season he showed that he can compete for wins and was so close on many occasions. You could argue that he was the best RFK driver for much of the season. He was even surprisingly fast on road courses this year.
Ryan Preece couldn’t write a happy ending to 2025 story
With the career that Ryan Preece has had, last night’s race would have been the perfect climax to his story. This modified driver, who fought for so many years just to make it part-time in the sport, rose to the top of the sport at Daytona to make the playoffs. It would have been perfect. But it didn’t happen that way.
Preece is going to finish 14th in points this season. Not good enough to make the postseason, though. Too many drivers from below the cutline were able to get wins. Preece just wasn’t good enough. He finished only 35 points behind Chris Buescher, his teammate.
To see all three RFK Racing cars fail to make the playoffs is shocking. At one point this season, Brad Keselowski was below 30th in points. He rallied all the way back to 19th in points in the regular season. Still, no playoffs.
Ryan Preece needs to be in the Cup Series. RFK Racing is where he belongs. But what does his future have in store for 2026 when the charter he’s racing on is being leased by Rick Ware and is now up in the air amid a legal battle with Legacy Motor Club? We will have to wait and see.