RYAN PREECE – Atlanta Advance

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

Event Overview

●  Event:  Ambetter Health 400 (Round 2 of 36)

●  Time/Date:  3 p.m. EST on Sunday, Feb. 25

●  Location:  Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia

●  Layout:  1.54-mile oval

●  Laps/Miles:  260 laps/400 miles

●  Stage Lengths:  Stage 1: 60 laps / Stage 2: 100 laps / Final Stage: 100 laps

●  TV/Radio:  FOX / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

●  Ryan Preece finished 23rd in the season-opening Daytona 500, held Monday after persistent rain postponed The Great American Race to the President’s Day holiday. Preece overcame adversity early when on lap six he was tagged by another car in the left-rear quarter panel, turning Preece across the frontstretch grass and toward pit road. Preece deftly kept his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang from hitting the wall, and after a trip to pit road for four fresh Goodyear tires, Preece returned to the race.

●  Despite his Daytona 500 result, Preece still left Daytona a winner. The Stewart-Haas Racing driver won on Tuesday night prior to the Daytona 500, taking the checkered flag at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway in the 50-lap Tour-type Modified feature at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing. Preece took the lead on lap 16 from Craig Lutz and maintained the top spot the rest of the way, even as Ron Silk, winner of the prior two Tour-type Modified races at New Smyrna, closed in during the waning laps. The victory was Preece’s 13th World Series win.

●  Atlanta Motor Speedway has been around since 1960, but the Atlanta track Preece and his NASCAR Cup Series brethren will compete on this Sunday is only two years old. The 1.54-mile oval was reconfigured after the final race of the 2021 season. The banking was increased from 24 degrees to 28 degrees and the track was narrowed from 55-feet wide to 40-feet wide, and it was all covered in fresh asphalt. The goal of the reconstruction was to recreate the kind of pack-style racing seen at the behemoth, 2.5-mile Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and the even bigger 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Drivers competed on the new layout for the first time in March 2022 and the Ambetter Health 400 will be the fifth Cup Series race on the revamped track.

●  The Ambetter Health 400 will mark Preece’s seventh NASCAR Cup Series start at Atlanta, the last two of which came last year. His first four starts came on the old configuration, where his best finish was 25th, earned twice – March 2021 and July 2021. Preece logged his best Atlanta result in his most recent start at the track – 24th last July.

●  Outside of the NASCAR Cup Series, Preece has three other Atlanta starts. He ran two NASCAR Xfinity Series races at the track, each on the old layout, with his best result being seventh in February 2019. Last March, Preece competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Atlanta, where he also finished seventh.

●  Back with Preece and the No. 41 Ford Mustang at Daytona for the second weekend in a row 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.