{"id":100405,"date":"2025-08-21T22:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T22:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100405\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T22:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T22:38:08","slug":"recent-crashes-aside-ryan-preece-looks-to-make-this-daytona-trip-memorable-for-other-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/100405\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent crashes aside, Ryan Preece looks to make this Daytona trip memorable for other reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Preece is a realist. He\u2019s gone airborne in two of the last four races at Daytona International Speedway and knows the chances of being in a vicious crash Saturday night remains high.<\/p>\n

Ryan Preece is an optimist. He sees the odds as in his favor of keeping all four tires on the ground for the regular season finale (Coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock).<\/p>\n

Ryan Preece has a sense of humor. It would be easy to dread all the talk of his terrifying crash in 2023 at Daytona and his stunning wreck in this year\u2019s Daytona 500, but he\u2019s leaned into it heading into his final chance to make this season\u2019s playoff field.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago, Preece had an idea. Why not have the helmet he\u2019ll wear this weekend painted like an astronaut\u2019s due to his recent flights he\u2019s had at a track about an hour\u2019s drive from the Kennedy Space Center.<\/p>\n

The idea morphed into a Top Gun theme and Maverick-style helmet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s probably one of my favorite helmets,\u201d Preece said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

A new aerodynamic safety device debuts at Daytona<\/p>\n

Yet, why even acknowledge the misfortune in the past when he\u2019s trying to make the Cup playoffs for the first time and secure RFK Racing\u2019s only playoff bid this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel as race car drivers we\u2019re numb,\u201d said Preece, who needs to win Saturday\u2019s race to make the playoffs. \u201cWe\u2019re numb so to speak to wrecking like that. So, you know, when I barrel rolled two years ago or whatever it was, I still watch it and I think, \u2018Boy, I don\u2019t want to do that again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The 2025 regular season will conclude, and the playoff field will be set at the World Center of Racing.<\/p>\n

But he understands crashing can be an occupational hazard.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, as race car drivers, if you\u2019re going to compete and you\u2019re going to go out there and do your job to the best of your ability, you have to have absolutely no fear,\u201d Preece said. \u201cI just choose to forget about it and kind of bury it deep inside to where I don\u2019t even think about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we show up to Daytona, I think, \u2018Well, it\u2019s going to go different this time.\u2019 And sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn\u2019t and that\u2019s just the game we play.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes his fortune will change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a believer in the law of averages,\u201d Preece said. \u201c \u2026 Eventually It\u2019s going to turn around. I feel like the best thing I can do is go this weekend and race no different than I\u2019ve ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"NASCAR<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney goes into Saturday night\u2019s race at Daytona having scored a series-best five consecutive top-10 finishes. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s encouraged by his performance earlier this season at Talladega. He crossed the finish line in second place but his car failed inspection and was disqualified. While the result was taken away, how he drove in that race remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like things just really started to click,\u201d Preece said of that Talladega race. \u201cWhen I go back and watch superspeedway style of races you see people fall into situations and sometimes it kind of just happens to work out and they win. And then there\u2019s others where they could have done things different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve learned \u2014 about time I guess \u2014 with this car, understanding what I need to do to put myself in position to seize an opportunity of putting ourselves in position to win a race.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Preece is a realist. He\u2019s gone airborne in two of the last four races at Daytona International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-100405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}