(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
RIDGEWAY, Va. — Ryan Preece had a promising afternoon get washed down the tubes after he suffered a speeding penalty on Lap 135 of Sunday’s NOCO 400 at Martinsville Speedway.
Preece led the first 135 circuits before the setback during a caution for a Harrison Burton spin. He pulled out of the first pit box, which he selected after winning his first career pole, and exceeded the limit while exiting pit road.
“I sped off pit road, I guess. That ultimately cost us the track position,” Preece said. “I’ll take blame for that. I was trying to beat them out and ultimately got snapped speeding.
“I didn’t think we could [speed out of our box], to be honest with you, but I guess it’s my job to know that. It’s unfortunate, but when we had track position I think it showed that we had a really fast HaasTooling Ford Mustang, but you can’t do those things. You can’t make mistakes.”
Preece dropped to as low as 29th in Sunday’s 400-lapper and got bogged down in typical Martinsville traffic. He battled to stay on the lead lap while he still flaunted his speed, but couldn’t move through the field in enough time to return to the mix.
Ultimately, Preece cracked back into the top 20 and finished 15th — his best result since Phoenix Raceway. It’ll go down as a what-if moment for the 32-year-old in pursuit of his first Cup Series victory.
“That first run I think we climbed to 23rd or 21st, so I thought there was opportunity, but after three pit stops everybody else got their car that much better,” Preece said. “You saw Joey [Logano], they stayed out and gained track position and he ran second. I mean, he was gonna go a lap down for awhile, so you can’t make mistakes.
“We had a really fast race car, so once we got in the back it was so hard to do anything, so that’s on me.”
(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
Regardless, the freshman Stewart-Haas Racing driver had a much-needed high points day. Preece earned 32 points, in part from the 10 bonus points for his Stage 1 victory. Had he not sped, Preece would’ve contended for more points at the end of Stage 2.
Through nine races, Preece sits 27th in points, 66 points behind Chris Buescher for the final spot on the Playoff grid. He has an average finish of 24.6, skewed by terminal crashes in the first two races of the season at Daytona International Speedway and Auto Club Speedway.
Preece has top-20 finishes at all three short tracks this season and has earned 19 or more points in each of the last three races. While Sunday’s result doesn’t show for it, Preece is confident in his SHR team.
“I pride myself on not making mistakes, so that was pretty brutal there, but, like I’ve said, we have a fast race car and really felt like we could have probably swept the stages and ran top three or top five,” Preece said. “We were just as good as anybody, but it’s really tough. Dirty air against the pack. You didn’t want to smash them out of the way, but it was really hard to move around.”
