Ryan Preece and the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse team basically needed to win Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway to even have a CHANCE at making The Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship.
So, that’s what they did…
The Berlin, Connecticut-native pulled off the unthinkable at “The World Center of Racing” on Saturday night, keeping the No. 60 OIKOS Ford Mustang Dark Horse in the fight throughout a rollercoaster evening that saw Preece crashing in the tri-oval when the green-and-white checkered flag was displayed at the end of Stage 1.
But, despite the damage to his RFK Racing Ford Mustang, Preece stayed in the game, and picked the right strategy to find himself at the front of the pack in the closing laps, and when the race went into NASCAR Overtime after a wreck by Carson Hocevar and Erik Jones, he was right in the thick of the win fight.
On the final lap, when things devolved into a three-by-three cluster of cars, and DAYTONA 500 winner Tyler Reddick was pushing Zane Smith on the outside lane, when the No. 38 Aaron’s Dream Machine snapped lose and crashed into the outside wall, causing a major wreck on the final lap, forcing NASCAR to throw the yellow.
At the time of caution, Preece was clearly ahead of Daniel Suarez, making him the winner, while at the back, Shane Van Gisbergen’s 28th-place finish was enough to knock the No. 97 out of the post-season, in favor of Preece.
“I’m just speechless right now. But those guys, that No. 60 group, we’re fighters. When you put our back against the wall, we swing hard,” Preece said. “Last year there were a lot of keyboard warriors saying I was nothing. Well, we just kicked their butts tonight.”
Daniel Suarez came up just short and finished in second place, with Tyler Reddick in third, Michael McDowell in fourth, and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. rounding out the top-five. Austin Cindric, Austin Dillon, Alex Bowman, Josh Berry, and Cole Custer completed the top-10.
While the race on Saturday didn’t feature a lot of incidents, the wreck on the last-lap involved at least half the field, and ruined the evenings of guys like Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, and Cody Ware, amongst others. The scariest part of the incident was Daniel Dye, driving the No. 78, making hard contact with the left-side of Larson and launching onto the door of the HendrickCars.com Chevrolet.
The 16 NASCAR Cup Series drivers that qualified for The Chase (in order of seeding), were: Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Ty Gibbs, Chase Briscoe, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Daniel Suarez, Carson Hocevar, William Byron, Bubba Wallace, Austin Cindric, and Ryan Preece.
Shane Van Gisbergen missed out on a post-season spot by 17 points, with Brad Keselowski 79 out, Ross Chastain 104 out, and Michael McDowell 105 out.
The Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series Championship begins next weekend at Darlington Raceway with the Southern 500. Coverage begins Sunday, September 6 at 5:00 PM ET on USA Sports.
