Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Martinsville Media Availability
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, has one pole and a pair of top-10 finishes at Martinsville Speedway, including a seventh-place effort this past spring. Preece took part in a Ford media call this morning to talk about this weekend and his season overall.
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MARTINSVILLE THIS WEEKEND? “Martinsville, to be honest with you, qualifying day can make or break your race day. It’s really important and, for me, I felt like this spring I remember 100 percent that we were on a really good lap, potentially the pole, and then I just tried to get too much going into turn three like a lot of us race car drivers do when things feel really good, and just gave a lot of that up. I think this time with it being a new tire, kind of get a really good feel of what that’s gonna be in practice, but then just get your mind right for qualifying and try to put it on the pole.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE MATURED THIS YEAR AS A DRIVER? “I feel like quite a bit. There’s always something to learn. I would say that would be a lot due to the team that we have around me, but as well as Brad. Perspective is everything and you need to have an open mind as a race car driver and you need to be willing to listen to others, so I think that’s been nice. I guess to answer your question I feel like I’ve matured and focused on the things that Ryan Preece when he was a lot younger as a driver would just focus on.”
AUSTIN BEERS IS GOING FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP THURSDAY. IF HE WINS, HE’LL BREAK YOUR RECORD FOR BEING THE YOUNGEST TO WIN THE MODIFIED CHAMPIONSHIP. DO YOU KNOW HIM AND HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “The first thing is that records are meant to be broken, so I would be extremely happy for Austin. His father, I actually raced against his father, Eric, and I remember I was actually really young and there was an opportunity at one point that I almost drove for him. I’ve known the Beers family forever. I played video games with Austin when he was a little kid, and whenever I was gonna beat him or he was gonna beat me, he would hit the reset button. That was the big joke for the longest time, so, to answer that, I’d be extremely happy for Austin because he’s a great race car driver. He’s a great kid. He’s always upbeat and if somebody was gonna beat that record for being the youngest champion, I’d want it to be him. I’m excited for him and tomorrow night, and for him to have that opportunity and hopefully go do it.”
ARE YOU GOING TO BE THERE FOR THE RACE? “I, unfortunately, will not be unless something changes, but I will be following along to watch and hopefully he can close it out and win.”
ARE YOU ONE WHO GOES INTO THIS WEEKEND AS A NON-PLAYOFF DRIVER UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT’S LIKE FOR SOME OF THE OTHER PLAYOFF GUYS TO BE IN A DO-OR-DIE SITUATION? “Yeah. There’s a lot on the line for them, but does that mean I’m gonna pull over? If I’m leading the race, am I gonna pull over? I don’t think you can do that. There’s definitely a lot to it. I didn’t make the system. There’s 36, so there are 28 other drivers out there that are still trying to win or do the right things by their teams. Is it unfortunate that those guys that do-or-die have to go up against people that aren’t technically in the playoffs? It would do your team an injustice if you just kind of rode around saying, ‘Well, I’m just gonna ride eighth, ninth, tenth, second or whatever it may be.’ I think at that point, if you’re second or third and whoever it is runs you down, that’s where you just kind of use your head when it comes to some of that stuff. Every situation is different. You can make somebody’s life difficult or you can make it easy and how you choose to approach that is your decision, but, for me, my goal is to go and win. I was just down at the setup plate talking with Derrick and my engineers and the crew and looking at some stuff with them, and I’m excited about it. I feel like we have a lot of things to be excited for, so Martinsville is a race that when we go there I feel like we can win – not that I don’t at other places – but I’ve had a lot of success at Virginia short tracks, so it would be nice to bring home a grandfather clock.”
DO YOU USE IT AS EVER THINKING, ‘GOSH, IF I WAS DO-OR-DIE AT THIS TRACK AND I’M RUNNING TO BE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP, HERE’S WHAT I WOULD BE THINKING.’ – “I understand what you’re asking now. At that point, if you’re not locked in yet, I think their mindset is no different than my mindset, which is I need to win. That’s all you can do. When you fall into the point game of, ‘well, I just need to finish this place or higher,’ typically that’s where you end up and you end up in a struggle and the best way to go about it is go with every intention of winning and executing.”
DOES THIS TRACK OR THIS WEEK FEEL ANYMORE IMPORTANT TO YOU? “Yeah, Martinsville is a place that I love and the reason being is that’s where I got my first modified win. That’s where I got my first Cup Series pole. That’s where I’ve won multiple times in the modifieds, so there’s a lot of great things about Martinsville for me, but it’s just that track. There are certain racetracks that drivers feel that when they go to them, they feel like they can get that extra little bit, and when it comes to Martinsville, that’s the style of racetrack that we’re always a contender to go get the pole. We’re a contender at short tracks, so, for me, I talk about qualifying is extremely important and that’s because it is. Trying to make up track position in year’s past is extremely difficult and sometimes it takes you all 400 laps to do that. We saw it earlier this spring when we stayed out for stage points. It took us all the way until the final 50 laps to get in the top 10 and it’s not easy, so with that being said, I do see with Goodyear that the new left side should promote some tire wear, should promote tire management, so that should create late-race passing depending on how long these runs go, so there are a lot of things on my mind when it comes to that. That could make the track position game, depending on how your car is and how you manage your tires, a little bit easier, but when we go to Martinsville that is circled at the beginning of the year – two times that we can go win.”
ARE THERE ANY TENDENCIES FROM THE MODIFIED CAR THAT HAVE TRANSFERRED BETTER TO THIS NEXT GEN CAR AFTER FOUR YEARS? “Oh, absolutely, and that’s why I’m actually excited that we’re heading down the route that we’re going with the tire. I’ve been saying it for four years. This is what we need to do and we’ve been doing it and, guess what? Now we’re seeing passing. We’re seeing management. We’re seeing things that a lot of these drivers, a lot of people, they’re used to 40-50 lap sprints and management isn’t really a thing. You just had hard tires that depending on how hot they got would fall off, and now you saw it at the ROVAL, you’ve seen it at Loudon, you saw it at various places that depending on how hard you abuse that tire, the bigger the price you pay. That’s very similar to what I grew up racing was, yeah, I can choose to beat this tire and make speed and do all that, but I’m gonna pay the price at lap 40 or 50 in an 80-100 lap race. So, to me, the balance, the characteristics of the way that the car is driving as well was the tire deg is getting a lot more similar to what I’m used to.”
HOW MANY TIMES DURING THE WEEK DO THOSE CONVERSATIONS HAPPEN WITH YOUR CREW CHIEF ABOUT STRATEGY? “I let him tell me what the strategy is and then I make my plan on how I need to drive that race car based on what his plan is. He’s on the pit box. He sees what’s happening, the potential for cautions or if we need to short pit or what-not. That’s his decision. We’ve had those conversations and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to either use them up or make them live.”
HAVE YOU SEEN THE LAYOUT FOR THE SAN DIEGO COURSE AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT? “Yeah, I saw it yesterday and when I saw the picture of it, it reminded me of a Fortnite map. There was a lot going on there and I’m excited to go. I think it’s a great opportunity to go out to California and San Diego. Hopefully, we can beat SVG.”
HOW MUCH HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO TEST SINCE COMING TO RFK? “I did a wet weather test last October at Miami. That’s it.”
LOGANO DID THE NEW HAMPSHIRE TEST. WHEN THEY START WORKING ON THE TIRE MODEL COMING OUT OF THAT TEST HOW IS THE INFORMATION DISSEMINATED BETWEEN THE TEAMS? HOW FROM FORD GATHERS IT TO MAKE SURE ALL THE KEY PARTNERS ARE GETTING THE INFORMATION? “That’s a great question, but that’s probably a Brad question. As much as I like to be in-depth and very knowledgeable about my race cars and a lot of things that are going on, I just never had that conversation about those details because, to be honest with you, that’s way above me. That would be a Brad question. I think he could probably expand on that more. I wish I could give you more.”
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER IN THE RACE IF THE MODEL AND WHAT YOU SHOW UP WITH AT THE TRACK AREN’T IN SYNC? “I think there are a lot of things that play into that, but, from a driver’s standpoint, usually you fall off in the first run if you push those tires too hard, and that’s when you quickly figure out you need to drive differently. Based on my experiences and some of the things that I’ve learned in my day, I can adjust really quickly, but usually you’ll find out after the first set of tires that you need to change what you’re doing.”
DO YOU DISCUSS THAT WITH DERRICK? “I try not to ask him what springs and shocks and all of those things are that he’s putting in the car. As a race car driver, that’s my job – to understand how I need to take care of those tires, so I do it on my own.”
YOU HAVE EXPERIENCE WORKING ON CARS, SO I WAS JUST WONDERING IF YOU HAD MORE INPUT? “That goes back to the maturing things of this year. Don’t get me wrong, I just spent probably 30 minutes on a Gale Force yesterday working on a race car and some shocks and springs and bump stops. Do I know how? Yeah, but it’s not my job. At RFK, they didn’t hire me to be a crew chief. They didn’t hire me to be an engineer. They hired me to be a race car driver and understanding that that’s the role that I need to keep my head focused on has really been a big part of my success this year.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE HORSEPOWER CHANGE FOR NEXT YEAR? “I think they all go hand in hand. From a percentage breakdown, I think it’s around a 10 percent change. It’s gonna make a difference, but I think the tires being softer and all the things Goodyear has been doing has made a huge change. We were at the ROVAL a couple weeks ago and you could barely hook up the tires in third gear through the oval portion, so at the end of the day, what we’re doing as a sport is allowing us race car drivers to use the tools that we’ve learned coming through the ranks. If our car isn’t the fastest car, we can find ways to maximize our days or potentially win based on those skills that we’ve learned. That’s the thing I really like about the direction we’re going in with this sport.”
THE RESTART LAST WEEK WITH 17 TO GO YOU WERE LINED UP ON THE INSIDE OF ROW FOUR. WHY DIDN’T THE BOTTOM LINE WORK AS WELL? “I don’t know. For me, I couldn’t tell you. As soon as I got out of that race car, I wished I had gone to the middle lane because I’ve always said that the middle lane is the one with the most options for me with how I choose to drive superspeedways, so I was disappointed in myself. From anything that happened from there on, all eyes were forward to Daytona.”
WHAT DOES THE FIRST PIT STALL MEAN AT MARTINSVILLE. HOW SIGNIFICANT CAN THAT BE? “I can tell you there’s somebody that’s sped off the number one pit stall, but it’s actually the number two pit stall. For me, man, I wish I could go back and do that day over because track position was massive. It was a learning moment for sure. I felt like we had a really fast car and I feel like we’re gonna have a badass car this weekend, so a lot of good things looking forward and I’d love to have that number two pit stall again one day.”
WHAT IS THE LEARNING MOMENT FROM THAT DAY? WHAT GOES INTO SAYING, ‘DON’T SPEED’? “In that moment, I asked the question, ‘Can I speed from this box?’ And I was told I couldn’t, but apparently you can, so I think moving forward when you launch out of your pit box it’s to be aware to not go over the RPM that you’re told to target, so I think that’s the biggest thing. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Don’t take yourself out of the race. I’m somebody that I feel like on restarts I can be extremely aggressive. If we lose a spot or two, it’s not the end of the world because I can make it back. If you lose 35 spots, good luck trying to make that up.”