Ryan Preece – Daytona Speedweek

No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Wednesday, Feb. 14: 

●  Daytona 500 qualifying (single-lap qualifying to determine pole for the Daytona 500)

    ●  Time/TV/Radio: 8 p.m. ET on FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Thursday, Feb. 15: 

●  Bluegreen Vacations Duel (twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the field for the Daytona 500)

    ●  Time/TV/Radio: 7 p.m. ET on FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio 

Sunday, Feb. 18: 

●  66th annual Daytona 500 (first of 36 points-paying NASCAR Cup Series races in 2024)

    ●  Time/TV/Radio: 2:30 p.m. ET on FOX/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  The 66th Daytona 500 Feb. 18 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway will mark Ryan Preece’s fifth appearance in The Great American Race. The driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing earned his best Daytona 500 result in his third Daytona 500 start – sixth in 2021. It was his second top-10 finish in the Daytona 500, with his first coming in his Daytona 500 debut – 2019 when he finished eighth. Preece’s best overall finish at Daytona in eight career NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 2.5-mile oval is fourth, earned in the 2021 Coke Zero Sugar 400.

●  Preece is returning to Daytona nearly six months after being involved in a frightening accident in last year’s Coke Zero Sugar 400. The 33-year-old racer from Berlin, Connecticut, was running in a line of cars along the outside wall of Daytona’s backstretch when he was bumped by another car, which turned his racecar into his Stewart-Haas teammate, Chase Briscoe. Preece’s car then lifted off the ground and began flipping violently over the grassy area on the inside of the track, rolling over more than 10 times before finally coming to a rest. Despite the magnitude of the wreck, Preece climbed out of his damaged machine and walked to a waiting ambulance, which took him to nearby Halifax Health Medical Center for precautionary evaluations. After checking into the hospital late Saturday night, Preece walked out before 6 a.m. the next day and was back in his No. 41 Ford Mustang the following weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series’ next race at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

●  This is Preece’s second fulltime season with Stewart-Haas. He joined the organization in 2022 as a reserve driver, performing simulator work while running a mix of races across each of NASCAR’s top-three national touring series – Cup, Xfinity and Craftsman Truck. He won his second straight Truck Series race at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway in 2022, bookending the victory he scored in 2021 at the track where he made his Truck Series debut. That performance, as well as his behind-the-scenes work on the simulator earned Preece a promotion to Stewart-Haas’ No. 41 Ford Mustang in 2023. He promptly won his first career Cup Series pole in April at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway and highlighted his year with a strong fifth-place finish in July at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. All the while, Preece competed in other series, winning in only his second career ARCA Menards Series West start June 9 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and scoring his 26th career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory Oct. 26 at Martinsville.

●  Preece and his NASCAR Cup Series counterparts had a dress rehearsal for the 2024 season by competing in the non-points Busch Light Clash at the Coliseum Feb. 3 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Preece finished 11th in the 23-car field.

●  On-track action at Daytona begins with single-lap qualifying Wednesday night when the front row for the Daytona 500 will be set. The Bluegreen Vacations Duel – twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the 40-car field for Sunday’s race – follows on Thursday. Drivers in odd-numbered qualifying positions compete in the first Duel and those in even-numbered qualifying positions battle in the second Duel to fill out the remainder of the starting grid for the Daytona 500.

●  Adorning Preece’s No. 41 Ford Mustang at Daytona is HaasTooling.com, the cutting tool division of Haas Automation. HaasTooling.com allows CNC machinists to purchase high-quality cutting tools at great prices. Haas cutting tools are sold exclusively online at HaasTooling.com and shipped directly to end users. Haas Automation, founded in 1983, is America’s leading builder of CNC machine tools. The company manufactures a complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers, rotaries and indexers, and automation solutions.