Ryan Preece was quite the talk of the NASCAR community after his crash with Michael McDowell at North Hampshire on Monday. Currently at the 26th rank in NASCAR Cup Series standings, it can be safely said that 2023 has not been the best for Preece. Without a single Top-10 finish this season, Preece is making fans question Tony Stewart and Co.’s decision of replacing Cole Custer with Preece in the #41 Ford Mustang. The first half of his Cup Series season is not looking very good. 

However, Preece’s subpar performance cannot just be contributed to the skill factor. For about 5 to 6 races, Ryan has been on the receiving end of some pretty bad crashes. Apart from the parts of the race where he could capitalize on his skills in the tracks, there were some factors like these too that Preece had no control over. Was moving Custer to the Xfinity Series a bad idea? Or should fans still keep faith in Preece for one more season? Preece is certainly banking on the latter. 

Things are not looking that bad for Ryan Preece—the Tony Stewart favorite

As Kevin Harvick retires, so does the partnership between SHR and Busch Light. After Harvick, Preece and Aric Almirola are the drivers that Tony Stewart would want to bank upon. While the 2023 season was quite a rough start to Preece’s full-time NASCAR Cup Series career with SHR, he still hasn’t lost hope. In an interview with Sportsnaut, Preece expresses his optimism for the upcoming season. He feels that while 2023 was plagued by bad luck with crashes and wrecks, 2024 might turn out to be his year after all. 

Preece has led quite a few laps at Martinsville and has also exhibited impressive performance in Los Angeles. The trajectory of his performance shows gradual improvement, which is enough to give fans some hope for SHR after all. 

While the frustration for SHR’s inability to deliver undoubtedly mounts up, Preece had something to say about it in his interview. He acknowledges that sitting about and thinking how frustrating not winning is, there’s not much he could do about it, apart from keeping up the hard work and taking some other practices like capitalizing on the good tracks might also work out for him. Preece isn’t letting the 2023 season make him lose hope. 

However, he has a few things to say when it comes to changing the way things are.

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Ryan Preece wants a change in the existing NASCAR system

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While being positive that he will make a comeback to Stewart Haas Racing in  2024, Preece has also requested for some to be made to the current practices of NASCAR  that might help drivers like him perform better at these tracks. For one, he has joined Brad Keselowski in the appeal for practice time on the track that extends longer than the current 20 minutes. He feels that bringing back the racing conditions under which NASCAR racers in the olden days use to deliver their top performance should also be implemented now. 

“I’m one of those guys that says give me practice and give me testing, give me the things those guys had 20 years ago, and I get what they’re trying to accomplish but times have changed with this car,” said Preece. 

Preece has only 6 more races to bag a win and make it to the playoffs. He will make his seventh start at Pocono with The Highpoint. Com 400 race this Sunday. His optimism for the upcoming season and about Tony Stewart’s contract extension in 2024 might succeed in convincing fans that 2023 was indeed a bout of bad luck. Here’s hoping that Harvick’s retirement doesn’t leave a void in SHR and that this isn’t an end to Preece’s Cup Series career. 

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