MOORESVILLE, N.C. — With three places remaining in the NASCAR Cup Series season, Ryan Preece is 23 points behind teammate Chris Buescher for the final playoff spot.
He can make the playoffs two ways — by winning one of the final three races or moving ahead of either Buescher, Alex Bowman or Tyler Reddick, who currently are in playoff position.
Preece has enjoyed a solid season in his first year with RFK Racing. He ranks 13th in the standings with three top-five and 10 top-10 finishes.
A playoff berth would be the first of Preece’s career.
“It would be nice to go out and win this weekend or one of these next three weeks, or have the opportunity to point our way in. I want to make the playoffs,” Preece said. “That’s what we kind of said. We want to make the playoffs going into the year and, to be honest with you, I could tell there weren’t a lot of people that have us on their Bingo card, and I like that. I thrive off that, so, for me, now from a racer’s standpoint I want to win, and I don’t want to just win once I want to win a lot.
“We’re building that notebook and together as a group to be able to do that, so I look forward to these next three races as opportunities to try and win our way in, but if not, we’re gonna look at those next 10 races and use them as a way to build and even try to win and finish out this year and then carry that momentum into next year.”
Preece has confidence heading into this weekend’s event on the road course at Watkins Glen Int’l.
“I think road courses have been pretty good to us. You never know,” he said. “There’s a lot of chaos at the end of them. At the end of the day, we just need to put ourselves in position to execute if SVG (Shane van Gisbergen) were to have something go wrong or what-not. I feel like Chris (Buescher) is gonna be tough to beat at the road course, so I feel good there.
“I feel good at Richmond. As you guys saw at Talladega, we were really, really fast and I felt like we were gonna have an opportunity to win there, so I’m sure I’m not on everybody’s Bingo card to win, but I’d love to be the guy that upsets everybody.”
Preece, a former NASCAR Modified Tour champion, has taken a circuitous route to be in this position.
“I’ll tell you what, my path has been nothing short of the easy route,” Preece said. “Do I wish I could have had the easy route? If somebody presented it to me I wouldn’t say no, but there’s been a lot of things that I’ve learned along the way – experiences, who I want to be as a race car driver, and then when it comes to facing a challenge how to persevere and execute.
“All of the lessons I’ve learned up to this point have made me better as a race car driver, so I’m happy I ended up taking the road that I did, and I’m on the path that I am now. Was it a long one? For sure. There are points where it sucks, but at the same time that reward of success or succeeding and doing all of those things is gonna feel that much sweeter.”
