Following his second violent crash at Daytona International Speedway in three years, Ryan Preece joined Corey Lajoie on his Stacking Pennies incident to discuss what happened when Joey Logano and Ricky Stenhouse came together with 15 laps to go.
“Joey’s getting really hammered. Joey’s getting really hammered for his portion of this wreck,” LaJoie said. “I think, okay, kind of a missed block (by Stenhouse) but it’s racing, man. There was a hole. Joey poked it. And this is a little bit just kind of indecisive on (Stenhouse) too.”
Lajoie thought Stenhouse didn’t fully commit to the block.
“That’s one thought that I generally have is like every move you make has to be intentional, and you can’t soft-hand it,” LaJoie said. “If you’re throwing a block, you’ve got to throw it. If you’re covering a lane, you’ve got to commit to covering it no matter if you get turned or not. It seemed like (John Hunter Nemechek) was like a little bit indecisive. (Stenhouse is) kind of looking off at (Nemechek), debating on covering the top and then (Logano) had his nose in there and it’s just, you crash, man.”
Preece thought it was too early.
“Fourteen laps to go, man. It’s aggressive,” Preece responded. “I don’t know, not too aggressive, but I think like what do you expect? At that point I feel like when we’re racing in that race, you don’t expect the wreck to happen in Stage 1, you certainly don’t expect it to happen in Stage 2. But Stage 3, in the last 15… it’s typically going to happen in the last five like it did, but eh that happened a little early. But everybody’s setting themselves up to get in position for the last five.”
Preece also acknowledged why Logano wasn’t willing to concede the block.
“Joey knew that if he got there, he was going to take control of I think it was Austin (Cindric) or whoever it was in the front row,” Preece said. “Because if you’re that second car, you’re in the cat-bird seat. You are the guy that’s going to be pushing him out to be able to clear yourself and get down, it just opens up your options. If you’re in Row 3 or Row 4, you’re along (for the ride), you’re part of the band. You’re in back.”
Logano couldn’t get off Stenhouse once the field stacked up and they crashed. Preece launched off Christopher Bell when he was tagged by Cole Custer.
Preece also offered what it was like.
“So in that moment you know, when you’re tucked up on the guy, because I was on (William) Byron, because as my job I’m trying to get Byron to whoever’s in front of him to make sure we’re moving on our row.
“All I heard next before this all happened was, ‘They’re wrecking’ and then bam. It was like split second. Yeah, it was kind of like Talladega nights. That’s actually, right there in that moment I’m like eyes are closing and it gets, as you know, dead silent. And I knew for how long it was dead silent, I’m like in my head I think I’m like 10 feet, 15 feet in the air and I’m launching it past the grandstand. I thought we’ve got a problem. And you’re like, damn past the fence. Did you see the rear brakes lock up when I hit the brake pedal in the air? Thought I was gonna stop it. I was like, ‘Here’s my ticket, I want off the ride. I don’t wanna get on here.’”
