As a native New Englander, Ryan Preece spent plenty of summers visiting New Hampshire Motor Speedway. When NASCAR had its annual July race, he and his family would camp with his grandfather outside of Turn 1.
Preece remembers roaming the merchandise lots at the “Magic Mile” on a bicycle, hoping to one day get his shot on the track that he first visited when he was 7 years old.
“That’s a place that I have a lot of memories at,” Preece, who grew up nearly three hours away in Berlin, Conn., said of NHMS. “So, when we go there throughout the year, it has that home-track feel.”
The first time Preece competed at New Hampshire was in 2007, running for his family-operated team in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. At the time, the 1.058-mile oval was the largest track he‘d ever competed on, and he went on to finish 18th in the race.
Since then, Preece has made a grand total of 26 modified starts at New Hampshire, as well as six All-Star Shootout races, piling up eight top-five and 14 top-10 finishes. It took until 2021 for him to get his first points-paying win (he won the All-Star Race in 2017), when he made a slingshot move on the final lap to pass Ron Silk and Justin Bonsignore for the lead. The New England race fans erupted with cheers.
“It was always that one where I had been leading and it got away with a lap or two to go and never came to fruition,” Preece said. “That‘s a game of chess. I would say New Hampshire with the modifieds is similar — as far as how you need to play the game and position yourself to win — to how I would imagine if you were winning a superspeedway race. It’s all about positioning yourself and putting yourself in the best spot for that last lap.”
Along the way, Preece had highlight runs there, making his Cup Series debut at New Hampshire in 2015. He also finished runner-up to Kyle Busch in his first Xfinity Series start for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2017. On a national level, that effort was a huge boost for the driver, who went on to win his next start with JGR at Iowa Speedway.
“When you‘re doing stuff like myself or Josh Berry were doing, you‘re racing, winning and trying to figure out how do I get this opportunity at a national level,” Preece said. “Ultimately, I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for a phone call. I made that phone call and asked what it would take to get me two races for an opportunity. I was confident in myself that if I had the people around me and the car around me that I could get the job done.
“That was an eye-opening experience for a lot of people. I felt like I could do it and I did it. It‘s changed the way a lot of people think about racing.”
This year, however, Preece takes to his home track with the best Cup Series opportunity of his career. In four previous starts, he has a best finish of 16th in 2020. But driving for Stewart-Haas Racing is a different animal.
Preece expected to be up front at the Busch Light Clash, given it was a quarter-mile short track, just like what he‘s used to in the Whelen Modified Tour. And he was. The No. 41 team put an emphasis on Martinsville Speedway, and Preece won the pole and led the opening 135 laps before dropping back after a pit-road speeding penalty.
Preparation for New Hampshire began a few weeks back for Preece. He knows that this weekend is the time to get the job done.
“I think we showed with the preparation that we put in (for Martinsville) — it‘s not that we don‘t prepare for every race — but we put that little bit of extra in for every place we feel we can sneak one in,” he said.
“It‘s somewhere I enjoy racing at. I would say that my mindset is on kill when we go to that race. When I show up to Loudon, I feel very optimistic that it‘s a race that if we execute and all do our jobs, we‘re going to try to contend for the win.”
Preece is a driver who thrives on putting additional pressure on himself. He knows that if the team doesn‘t run well at a track it has poured resources into, it could look silly. But he‘s used to gambling on himself. Thus far, he‘s been successful.
“I think some individuals, some athletes, they don‘t thrive in moments like that,” Preece mentioned. “I thrive. I enjoy being disciplined and the moments where you have to perfect everything. That‘s not going to be every race, but when those are key, game-time moments, I‘m ready for it and am excited for those challenges.”
Through 19 races this season, the No. 41 team is still looking for its first top-10 finish of the season. Before getting tangled up with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. at Atlanta Motor Speedway, which essentially ended the race as rain began to fall, Preece had six consecutive top-20 efforts. Those finishes ranged from 13th to 17th, and all six were on a different style of track.
Going into 2023, Preece said he knew it would take time to develop chemistry. He handpicked his crew chief, Chad Johnston, someone he worked with in the Craftsman Truck Series throughout the last two seasons. Signs of progress have been made.
“It‘s been a building process,” Preece said of 2023. “We‘ve had high moments; we‘ve had low moments. I would say over the course of the past six weeks, we have fought. From a race perspective, stage one, stage two, stage three, we are in the ballgame or trending forward and have better speed at the end of races. Sometimes, things take a little longer than you want them to.”
For the remainder of the season, Preece‘s main goal is to qualify better. Should the No. 41 team do so — it has just four starting spots better than 20th in the first nine races — the races will come more naturally, as they won‘t have to play catch up.
“If we can qualify better, we‘re going to be running in the top 15, top 10, top-five area,” Preece said.
First up, though, is New Hampshire. And that‘s a place that Preece expects to be up front.