Preece Returning to Site of Best-Ever Finish Looking for First Cup Win

In his maiden campaign with Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing, Ryan Preece has caught some people off guard, and turned some heads in a positive way.

The native of Berlin, Connecticut, has put together the best season of his NASCAR Cup Series career, with three finishes inside the top-five and 11 top-10s, but the 34-year-old driver is still in search of that one undeniable sign of success: a victory.

Preece was probably the closest he's ever been to winning a NASCAR Cup Series event earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, finishing third in the Pennzoil 400 in March, behind race-winner Josh Berry and Daniel Suarez.

"I think it was an execution of a lot of different things," Preece said Wednesday speaking about the Spring event at Las Vegas. "The speed in the car. Good restart choices. Executing the race is ultimatley what got us that third-place finish. I think between pit strategy, I remember there were two guys racing really hard at the end of that race taking air off each other that made us go from a fifth-place finish to a third-place finish and allowed us to capitalize on that."

The March event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway still stands as Preece’s best finish of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign, but a lot has changed, and that strong finish was just the start of a solid campaign for the third RFK Racing entry, which was built from scratch for this season.

"I'll be honest with you, I think it shocked a lot of people for a first-year team that has never been together or been at RFK as an organization, so I feel like we've executed and done a good job on being consistent and making progress outside of winning," Preece said about his No. 60 RFK Racing team. "A win would have locked us into the Playoffs, but if you take away winning and you're in, I see some things -- I think we'd be like 12th or whatever in points and that's not something to be uspet about."

"I think that's a solid foundation towards hopefully a really, really strong contending season next year," Preece added. "At the end of the day, all I can do is control the things that I can control. For me, I feel like we've made a lot of progress and we continue to make progress and even in moments of adversity we find a way to execute, so I see a really high ceiling on all fronts and that makes me feel really optimistic and excited about 2026."

This weekend's NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sunday, October 13 at 5:30 PM) could end up being one of Preece's best opportunities to win this season, as he looks to join the list of elite names that have won for Jack Roush in NASCAR. But, this weekend in particular, he's got a little bit extra motivation.