Ryan Preece Reflects on the Pride of Being a Self-Made Racer: ‘It Means Just as Much as Anything’

Although NASCAR has no shortage of drivers carrying family legacies, names like Ryan Blaney, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chase Elliott, and Layne Riggs stay ahead in that game, there are others who carved their own path to the top. Ryan Preece is one of them. His father owned a small plumbing and HVAC shop in Connecticut, where Preece once worked fabricating ductwork before chasing a career in racing. From those blue-collar roots, he clawed his way to the Cup Series without leaning on a family racing empire.

Preece recalled starting out in Meriden, Connecticut, racing at Silver City. With two older brothers, he followed their lead. One of them showed promise in dirt micros at Whip City in Massachusetts, and Ryan picked up the torch. He ran go-karts when his brother was in high school and moving on to other things, keeping his passion alive.

That drive only grew. He graduated to dirt micros, then asphalt micros, before racing at Mahoning Valley. At 13, an opportunity came when someone put him in a modified, and that was the hook.

He sold his asphalt 600 cc micro sprint and bought his first turnkey modified, a Troyer car from 1992 or 1993 with a 23-degree motor. They sold the micro for $10,000 and bought the modified for the same price, a straight swap that changed his path.

As Frontstretch journalist Amy Henderson noted, there’s a different kind of respect for drivers who pay their dues and climb the ladder, and Preece could not agree more. “Yeah, that’s part of racing. It’s the stories, the family sacrifices, the sponsors that come with you. That’s what makes racing great, because we drive racecars, but a lot of it was this guy was a mechanic, or this guy was a plumber, and he raced on weekends.”

“It’s no different than what Dale Earnhardt‘s story was many, many years ago, his hardships. So, that’s what makes racers great. And I think at the end of the day, the respect that you carry through the garage on how you get there, as well as the respect you carry with race fans, is a huge piece of it,” he added.