{"id":457490,"date":"2026-02-06T11:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457490\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T11:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:32:10","slug":"nascar-insider-reacts-to-ryan-preece-winning-clash-earning-first-cup-series-level-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457490\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insider reacts to Ryan Preece winning Clash, earning first Cup Series-level win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Preece has put in the work over the last calendar year to become a real force in the NASCAR<\/a> Cup Series. Wednesday night at Bowman Gray Stadium, it all came together for the 35-year-old.<\/p>\n

Preece took the checkered flag in the season-opening exhibition, the Clash. While not an official points race, Preece got the chance to feel what it\u2019s like to jump out of his car the victor of a Cup Series event. While momentum might not be a real thing in motorsports, confidence is, said Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. Preece has plenty of it coming out of Wednesday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is big for Ryan Preece in the sense of like, look, it\u2019s an exhibition race, it doesn\u2019t go down in the record books and when we talk about winners at the end of the year, if he doesn\u2019t win another race, people are not even gonna mention this,\u201d Gluck said on The Teardown<\/a>. \u201cIt will be one of those things where people go, \u2018Wait Ryan Preece won the Clash, too.\u2019 This race can kind of easily be forgotten but what this race does is you go, \u2018OK, I can do it, the team knows you can do it, the driver and the team know together we can do it, the organization\u2019s like, OK, we didn\u2019t win anything last year, this is good for us.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cMomentum wise, going into a season where you\u2019re going to have to have consistency, and I think RFK is one of those teams, like, with [Chris] Buescher, we don\u2019t know [Brad] Keselowski\u2018s status after his injury, but it\u2019s gonna be one of those things where Preece can absolutely make the top 16 on points. What does he have to do to do that? He has to have confident nights like tonight. So, while this doesn\u2019t change his career, I think it\u2019s a big thing that could change his season. People say is momentum really a thing in racing; I think confidence is. So, when you look at something like this, it\u2019s like, \u2018Hell yeah, I can do this.\u2019 That\u2019s a big thing. I think that goes a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Preece full of confidence after Clash win<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long road for Preece. He found himself out of a job in 2024 when Stewart-Haas Racing closed its doors. Preece found a new home at RFK Racing, thanks to Keselowski, who trusted him enough to give him a seat in the No. 60 Ford.<\/p>\n

Preece had a career year in 2025, just missing out on the postseason and finishing 18th in the points standings. He made the Clash on speed and was fast throughout, leading 27-of-200 laps. It felt good for Preece, who was\u00a0emotional and fought back tears<\/a>\u00a0as he spoke to\u00a0FOX Sports\u2018\u00a0Regan Smith\u00a0in Victory Lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even know what to say,\u201d Preece said. \u201cTo be honest with you, it\u2019s been a f*cking long road. It\u2019s the Clash but man, it\u2019s been years and years of grinding, and I\u2019m just super thankful for\u00a0Brad Keselowski, Kroger, Coca-Cola, all our partners \u2014 break open the Pappy \u2014\u00a0Jack Roush, the Fenway Group. Two years ago, I didn\u2019t think I was gonna have a job. I thought I was going back to Connecticut. Man, I\u2019m just super, super, super emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Preece has put in the work over the last calendar year to become a real force in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-457490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}