Ryan Preece |

Ryan Preece enters his sixth full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Season in 2025. He’s fresh off a two-year stint in the No. 41 for the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing. That […]

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Ryan Preece enters his sixth full-time season in the NASCAR Cup Season in 2025. He’s fresh off a two-year stint in the No. 41 for the now-defunct Stewart-Haas Racing. That led to Preece catching the attention of RFK co-owner/driver Brad Keselowski, as RFK Racing increases to a three-car team in 2025.

Preece and now teammate Chris Buescher are once again reunited, as the two were teammates just five seasons ago at JTG Daughterty Racing. The duo have remained close friends through their young careers, as both have entered the elite levels of racing the hard way – through proven success.

Preece is the epitome of grassroots racing, having come through the ranks over the past several years.

In the Northeast racing community, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour is king. It is NASCAR’s oldest division and the only open-wheel series sanctioned by NASCAR. It has produced three NASCAR Hall of Famers – Richie Evans (Class of 2012), Jerry Cook (Class of 2016) and Mike Stefanik (Class of 2021).

As a 13-year-old, Ryan Preece was driving and winning in these low-slung, high-horsepower machines. By the time he turned 16, Preece was a Tour regular. In 2009, the Berlin, Connecticut-native finished second in the championship and earned another runner-up result in 2012. Then in 2013, a 23-year-old Preece won the Modified Tour title by scoring four victories and racking up 10 top-five finishes to edge Doug Coby by 32 points.

With a championship in hand, Preece used it to earn new opportunities while continuing to tally wins on the Modified Tour and in other similarly styled cars. He won another Modified track championship at Thompson in 2014 and grabbed the 2015 New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedweeks Modified championship.

That success earned Preece his NASCAR National Series debut in 2013, making three starts in a span of two seasons. He then landed a full-time ride with JD Motorsports in 2016. He persevered and persisted, then won two more New Smyrna Speedweeks Modified titles in 2016 and 2017 while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on achieving Xfinity Series success.

Preece put everything on the line to secure two races with Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) in 2017. In equipment finally befitting his talent, Preece finished second in his JGR debut at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon and then won in his next outing at Iowa Speedway in Newton. In his next five Xfinity Series starts, Preece never finished outside of the top-10, a run capped with a second victory in April 2018 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

His 19-race Xfinity Series slate with JGR earned Preece a fulltime Cup ride with JTG-Daugherty Racing. He debuted with the team in the 2019 Daytona 500 and finished a strong eighth. Despite some other impressive performances that netted eight additional top-10 results in a three-year stint with the team, Preece left unfulfilled.

While wins eluded Preece in Cup, he remained victorious in other series. He won three Modified Tour races in 2021 to bring his career win total to 25, and he collected Modified wins at other familiar tracks, namely Thompson, Stafford and South Boston (Va.) Speedway. Preece also made his NASCAR Truck Series debut, winning in his first career start on June 18, 2021 at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.

Preece bet on himself in 2022, eschewing opportunities with other teams to embed himself with Stewart-Haas Racing as the team’s reserve driver. He spent the year performing simulator work that benefitted the entire organization and ran a mix of races across each of NASCAR’s top-three national touring series – Cup, Xfinity and Truck. Preece punctuated the diverse schedule by winning his second straight Truck Series race on June 24 at Nashville.

The collective performance earned Preece another crack at the Cup Series, driving the No. 41 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing.

Preece’s father, Jeff, raced Late Model stock cars, and his grandfather, Bob Judkins, was a well-respected Modified car owner. That meant Preece was introduced to racing early on, going to races throughout New England to watch his dad compete. By age 7, Preece was the one competing, racing Quarter Midgets at tracks in Meriden and Thompson, Connecticut. Go-karts followed, then 600cc Micro Sprints, Mini Sprints and Winged Micro Sprints on asphalt.

It was at a Winged Micro Sprint race in 2002 at Mahoning Valley Speedway in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, where Preece was first tabbed to drive a Modified.

Preece resides in Kannapolis, North Carolina, with his wife, Heather, and their daughter, Rebecca.

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Fast Facts

Birthday

Oct 25, 1990

Hometown

Berlin, CT

Residence

Kannapolis, NC

Website

https://www.ryanpreeceracing.com/ryan.html

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