Ryan Preeces Martinsville top 10 pushes him into Playoff conversation
03/30/2025 09:10 PM
Expectations skyrocketed for Ryan Preece in 2025 when he joined RFK Racing. The organization put multiple cars in Victory Lane last season for the first time since 2013, and expanding to three cars showed it was taking another step forward.
Meanwhile, Preece moved on from a defunct Stewart-Haas Racing, but he remained within the Ford camp. Admittedly, this was his best opportunity to succeed across his six full-time seasons at the Cup Series level.
Through the opening seven events, Preece is thriving.
With a seventh-place finish in Sunday‘s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, Preece has three consecutive top-10 finishes for the first time in 194 Cup starts. He‘s leaped to 15th on the Playoff grid, 15 points above the elimination line.
"I‘m proud of everybody on this Fastenal Ford Mustang and everybody at RFK," Preece told a group of reporters upon climbing out of his No. 60 Ford at Martinsville. "We‘ve just got to keep working and keep grinding."
The string of finishes began in mid-March at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Preece placed third, trailing only Josh Berry and Daniel Suarez. The No. 60 car spent much of that race mired between 11th and 20th, but played a different strategy from the majority of the field to get track position late.
Comparable to Las Vegas, Preece spent a bulk of Homestead-Miami Speedway outside of the top 10, with stage finishes of 20th and 14th. He rallied late in the event to take the checkered flag in ninth.
An avid short-track racer, Preece is always in his element at Martinsville. He secured four stage points in Stage 1 with various strategies playing out. He dropped to 23rd at the end of Stage 2. But he powered on in the final stage and capitalized on multiple restarts to finish seventh, his best result in 12 trips to Martinsville.
"I didn‘t expect that one," Preece said of his Martinsville run. "It all started with me messing up in qualifying and putting us back there. Ultimately, we got some great stage points and some great calls and great adjustments on the box and we got this Fastenal Ford Mustang where it needed to be.
"We‘ve got some work to do to be able to drive through like some other cars do, but I think we‘ve got some good ideas and obviously a little luck went our way today."
To be 14th in the regular season standings is the highest Preece has been in points through seven races. He knows that every point matters, even if he wants to chase victories.
"We‘re getting on a roll," he added. "At first, this is a place I wanted to take advantage of for points because I felt like Martinsville is in my wheelhouse, so I‘m happy we did. I hate talking about points, but every bit matters."
The series heads to Darlington Raceway next week, where both of Preece‘s RFK teammates — Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher — were in contention to win last spring. Co-owner Keselowski snapped a 110-race winless drought by winning that race. In 10 starts at Darlington, Preece has a pair of 12th-place finishes with an average finish of 20.7.
