A little over a month ago, Ryan Preece wrecked at Daytona in one of the scarier crashes that most fans will ever see, with his car flipping over multiple times. For fans, it was a horrific crash. However, for Preece’s family, it was a potential nightmare scenario.
While speaking to The Athletic, Preece explained what his wife went through thanks to his crash at Daytona.
“Well, I would never want her to feel like that again,” Ryan Preece said. “As a race car driver, we don’t think about the consequences. Because we love this sport and we’re very competitive. That feeling, that high of highs when you’re successful, that’s all we chase.”
Ryan Preece has an infant daughter and his wife was at home watching when he crashed. For his wife, there was immediate fear that he was severely injured.
“Now on the other side, if some of us have wives or girlfriends, they’re the ones who are sitting there helpless, right? And I know after talking to her, when she watched that happen, as violent as it was … I can imagine how she felt. I don’t want to say she felt, ‘He’s dead,’ but she felt I was really hurt. So seeing me get out obviously felt good for her,” Preece said.
“My first thought was, ‘I need to let Heather know I’m OK.’ Even when I watch that wreck to this day, as a race car driver, it’s just another wreck. But I do understand to my wife and to many people out there, when they see that, that’s not a normal thing.”
This wasn’t the first wreck that Ryan Preece has suffered in his NASCAR career. It also likely won’t be his last. However, it was one that like helped him understand how others feel about those crashes that he gets in.
“I’ve wrecked a lot of race cars in my day, like we all have. We’ve all destroyed race cars. So, we don’t think about the consequences. But when I look at that and I put her hat on and see it from her eyes, I can understand why she was so nervous.”
Ryan Preece confirms he’s returning to No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team next year
Recently, Ryan Preece confirmed he’s returning to the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team for next year.
“I’m gonna be here with the 41 at SHR next year. Definitely looking forward to it, and we’ve made a lot of gains [this season],” Preece said.
“Last weekend was pretty frustrating just because we drove our way into the top-5 and unfortunately was on the wrong end of one of the last restarts and nothing to show for a day where you worked really hard to get to where you were in the last 10 laps. Moving forward, I like the direction of the things that we’ve been working on here at SHR… It makes me optimistic going into not only Talladega because we have such fast superspeedway cars, but going to Las Vegas.
“Our mile and a half stuff — it’s never been really my strong suit. But some of the things we’ve worked on — I feel really eager and excited to get to Las Vegas. And obviously when we go to Martinsville and Phoenix, those are two of our stronger tracks. So we have a good couple of races coming up.”
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