Ryan Preece had a lot of time to process his Sunday disqualification after initially finishing second at Talladega Superspeedway.
“I was about an hour and a half, two hours in when I got the call that we got disqualified and the next four hours were pretty miserable,” Preece said Saturday during a media availability at Texas Motor Speedway. “When I look back through that race, and the things we did, executing as a team, the strategy and how we had to attack each stage, because each stage was different … so the way we attacked it as a team and the way we persevered, our green flag pit stops, the guys did a good job, and I’m excited for Texas to back it up.”
The disqualification, which denied him his career best second place finish, was for a shim left in the rear spoiler bracing of the RFK No. 60 car he is driving for the first season this year.
“From my understanding, I don’t know how many cars failed the first (time) … more than 30, and I’m guessing it was for spoiler angle, and what that shim does, puts the spoiler up to where they want that degree,” Preece said. “It was just an oversight to meet their rule to get through tech but it is the rule.
“There’s obviously a process (now) in place to not be in that situation but when you’re in the heat of the battle and you don’t want to fail tech twice, you’re trying to get through. Ultimately, we had a fast race car and our guys have been grinding and griding — hard work and perseverance.”
To that point, Preece is still in the hunt for a Cup Series Playoff spot and believes in his team’s capacity for success the rest of the way.
“I mean, it’s not ideal, what happened but it’s not like it was a performance thing,” Preece said. “I don’t think you’d want to add a shim to put spoiler angle in a car. It was to meet the rule that to pass tech and in the heat of the battle, you’re just trying to get through tech on tech day.
“So, you know, it is what it is, and the thing about our group is we’ll go out there, execute, get stage points and keep putting ourselves in positions to have great days like that. Yeah, just keep fighting.”
