MARTINSVILLE, Va.: Stewart-Haas Racing Ryan Preece was fast during Sunday’s NOCO 400.
Unfortunately, he was too fast at the wrong time on pit road in Stage 2 which took the polesitter from the lead to the rear of the field.
Ultimately the speeding penalty also cost Preece an opportunity to not only score his first career NASCAR Cup Series win, but his first top-10 of the season.
Surprising the garage with the fastest time during qualifying on Saturday afternoon, Preece was able to showcase the speed in his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang in the opening 135 laps of the race by not only dominating more than the first quarter of the race but able to put reining Cup Series champion Joey Logano and a lap down.
When Harrison Burton spun in Turn 2 on Lap 133 it offered the opportunity to for Preece to make a routine pit stops for tires and fuel. After a solid routine pit stop, Preece sped in the last section of pit road.
Preece was attempting to retain his lead from a hungry pack of competitors behind him, but as he left his pit box, he clearly stood on the gas pedal and gunned ahead of the competition in the last section.
NASCAR offers a five-mile per hour buffer for speeding, but Preece was well over the limit and restarted deep in the field.
Battling Martin Truex Jr. and Bubba Wallace who also suffered pit stop speed penalties during the race, Preece was able to manage the penalty the best by the end of Stage 3, climbing back inside the top-25.
During Stage 3, Preece made more progression forward but in a day where it proved nearly impossible to pass and lacking the clear air he had in the first portion of the race, Preece settled for a lead lap 15th place finish at the checkered flag but was more than 11.4 seconds behind leader Kyle Larson.
A disappointed Preece said he was proud of his Stewart-Haas Racing team for being able to show the speed in their race car over the past several races, but need to do better moving forward.
“I sped off pit road, I guess,” Preece said after the race. “That ultimately cost us the track position. We had a really fast race car, so once we got in the back it was so hard to do anything, so that’s on me. I’ll take blame for that. I was trying to beat them out and ultimately got snapped speeding.”
Having the top choice for a pit stall for Sunday’s race, Preece was surprised he could get caught speeding knowing how close the timing line was compared to where he was pitting.
“I didn’t think we could, to be honest with you, but I guess it’s my job to know that,” Preece admitted. “It’s unfortunate, but when we had track position I think it showed that we had a really fast HaasTooling Ford Mustang, but you can’t do those things. You can’t make mistakes.”
A solid rebound during Stage 2 offered some hope for Preece to be able to bounce back, but he acknowledged that teams having the opportunity to improve the handling of their race cars hindered his progression in Stage 3.
“That first run I think we climbed to 23rd or 21st, so I thought there was opportunity, but after three pit stops everybody else got their car that much better,” Preece explained. “You saw Joey (Logano), they stayed out and gained track position and he ran second. I mean, he was gonna go a lap down for a while, so you can’t make mistakes.”
Despite the mistake on Sunday, Preece said he had a fast enough race car that could have contended for a top-five finish.
“I pride myself on not making mistakes, so that was pretty brutal there, but, like I’ve said, we have a fast race car and really felt like we could have probably swept the stages and ran top three or top five,” he said. “We were just as good as anybody, but it’s really tough. Dirty air against the pack. You didn’t want to smash them out of the way, but it was really hard to move around.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01 or email at: [email protected]
