Ryan Preece was a really good spokesperson for Kroger.
In addition to the promise that there was always more to unlock at the Cup Series level for the 2013 Whelen Modified Tour champion, Preece is also just a really good spokesperson and the retail giant never forgot it.
Preece drove for JTG Daugherty Racing from 2019 to 2021, representing Kroger, which has sponsored Cup Series programs under a marketing entity owned by former team owners Jodi and Tad Geschickter since 2010.
They are the ‘JTG’ of JTG Daugherty Racing.
When that team downsized to one charter before the 2021 season, a charter that was held by then team partner Todd Braun, Preece first ran a full season as an open team driver and then was out of a ride when the second team folded.
That’s how he eventually made his way to Stewart-Haas Racing, due in part to his agents, Kevin Harvick and Josh Jones.
Then came the shuttering of SHR, and the Geschickters leaving the team they owned, and shopping the Kroger package around to the best suitor with the best combination being Preece joining RFK Racing and a third car to partner with Chris Buescher and team co-owner Brad Keselowski.
But there’s history there too as Buescher is also a former JTG Daugherty Racing driver from 2016 to 2019 under the Kroger partnership. In other words, as everyone stated on Tuesday at an introductory press conference at the retailer’s headquarters, this just made sense.
Brent Cox is the director of health and baby care at Kroger, and has been involved with the racing activation since the 2000s when it sponsored the Xfinity and Truck Series event at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Brickyard weekend.
“I think, again, Kroger has been involved in racing here for a while and we really were looking to get to a bigger team and have more opportunities to frankly go out and win some races,” Cox said. “Through that search, and Tad and Jodi were a big help as we moved over to RFK, that was really the drive and certainly once we met Brad Keselowski and saw what he and Steve were doing at RFK and longtime relationships with Chris Buescher, who is one of the finest NASCAR drivers out there, and then hearing about Ryan Preece, it just made a lot of sense and was a good fit for the Kroger company to do that.”
The Geschickters, again, operate Brand Activation Maximizer, which assists Kroger with its NASCAR operations and they were advocates for Preece based on their previous relationship at the team. It has landed Preece at a team on the upswing, which has won multiple races and made the playoffs with both drivers the past two years.
“It’s one that I’m really eager and excited for,” Preece said of the opportunity. “It’s somewhere that these guys had speed last year. You look at how many weeks in a row that Brad and Chris finished top two or top three and had some extremely good stats and found Victory Lane, so, for me, it’s a great opportunity – one that’s filled with pressure, but I think if you’ve looked at my career those pressure type situations I’ve succeeded, so I’m grateful for the opportunity.
Thank you to RFK, Brad, BAM, all these people because it seems like you all in NASCAR can’t get rid of me, so I’m going to work hard to stay and succeed.”
To that point, after joining teams on the downswing like JTG Daugherty at the time, and then Stewart-Haas Racing, Preece started to wonder if he was going to go back to racing the short tracks next season.
“There was some opportunities out there, but, at the same time, I wasn’t sure,” Preece said. “That makes me that much more grateful for Kroger, for BAM, for RFK and to have this because it seemed like in July or August both Heather and I were looking at properties back in Connecticut because that’s where I’m from.
“I moved to North Carolina back in 2018 chasing opportunities, chasing the dream to win at the Cup level, to perform at the Cup level, so if this didn’t happen, I was probably going to end up moving back and wasn’t quite sure what it was all going to be like, but obviously we’re extremely grateful to have this opportunity.”
This is a big win for Keselowski, team president Steve Newmark and RFK too. The team picked up the third charter from Rick Ware Racing, which runs out of the RFK shop, but it’s only a one-year loan of the No. 15 charter.
“Just to be clear, our vision is that a third car is a permanent state and a permanent condition for RFK,” Newmark said. “But you still have to navigate the charter landscape, so what we have done at least in the short term is we’ve been fortunate that we have a partnership with Rick Ware Racing, a technical alliance where we’ve been working hand-in-hand with Rick Ware and Robby Benton over the last year to try and elevate the performance of both teams and as part of that going into next year we’ll be leasing one of the Rick Ware charters.
“We’re still collaborating with that organization to try to, again, lift both organizations and make sure that we can continue to elevate our game. That is the charter we will have for next year and then, obviously, the future will see what that brings.”
Kroger, and its large assortment of marquee retail brands, will appear on all three cars in various forms next season.
“We’re really fortunate,” Keselowski said. “We keep using the term blue chip and that’s because we mean it. These are serious brands that have serious marketing prowess that take their endeavors in NASCAR very seriously. That’s so important to us to be able to branch out. Of course, we want to win but we want to be bigger than our results too, for good or bad, but I think you look at the partners and you look at how Kroger’s approached the sport, it’s just a proper NASCAR program with really elite marketing that benefits us in so many different ways.
“We know we’ve got to go out there and win. We’re committed to doing that, but we also have to do a great job delivering off the track with how we take care of Kroger. Steve and the whole corporate team has the master plan to execute that. They’re much more versed in it than I am. I’m off trying to make sure we can win. They’re off trying to make sure we can sell those cases, so it’s a one-two punch.”
And, he believes the best is yet to come for Preece too.
“It’s fortuitous timing with Joey Logano winning the championship and I had this video pop up in one of my social media feeds, but Joey Logano’s career in 2012 and some pundits maybe saying that they didn’t think he deserved a Cup ride and now to see that it seems a little bit laughable now that he’s won his third championship,” Keselowski said. “I think it’s a testament to not being in the right situation. I don’t care who you are as a driver, if you’re not in the right situation – you take the best driver in Cup and put him in a situation that’s not right, it’s not gonna work. So, for me, what I look for is people that have specific talent sets, whether that be their talent behind the wheel and combine that with some work ethic.
“I see Ryan, I see someone who has talent. He has work ethic and probably hasn’t been in the opportunities he needs to be in to be successful, so my commitment is to taking someone like Ryan and putting him in that spot where he can win and with the right resources, with the right team around him and the right support structure and that’s what I see out of Ryan. He’s got the talent. He’s got the work ethic and that’s our commitment back to him is to put him in the right situation with the right equipment, the right people, and the right infrastructure in order to be successful and I think we can do just that.”
So where does this leave the team that was most recently called JTG Daugherty Racing?
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and crew chief/competition director Mike Kelley, have both signed multiyear extensions to remain with the No. 47 team next season. However, the only confirmed owners of that team is Gordon Smith and Ernie Cope.
When they won Talladega, Kelley expressed confidence about the 47 team’s future.
“I’m on the competition side,” Kelley said. “I don’t know. I know I’ve got a great group of owners with Ernie (Cope) and Gordon (Smith). I just resigned my deal for a couple of years, and I’m excited we re-signed.
“We have an alliance with Hendrick, and they help us with technical alliance and Mr. H and Jeff Gordon and Jeff Andrews and Scotty Maxim, that whole group, Chad Knaus. We’re the little team. We don’t get everything we want. They give us what we can and when they can.
“But, yeah, I’m excited about the future here. We’re still a small team. There’s no getting around that. It’s not easy, but I’ve told everybody last year when I took this position over that I always felt like even though if I got 30 guys working on our race team, if I got 30 guys pulling in the same direction, I like my chances.”
The team seemingly went through a rebrand on Tuesday with the signage outside changing to ‘HYAK Racing. Smith owns HYAK Maritime, which constructs fleet ready tug boats and heavy marine transportation.
Cox made sure to thank Stenhouse during the press conference on Tuesday as well.
“I would like to take one minute and wish the very best to Ricky Stenhouse Jr,” Cox said. “As I said, he delivered one of our biggest racing goals, which was winning the 2023 Daytona 500, so we thank Ricky. We thank him for the great memories that he brought our team and we wish him, Madyson, and his son, Stetson, all the best in the coming years.”