● Home Sweet Home: Ryan Preece and the No. 41 Mohawk Northeast Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) are heading home to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, approximately two hours and 45 minutes from Preece’s hometown; Berlin, Connecticut. The Cup Series heads North for afternoon action at the 1.058-mile oval on Sunday, July 16 at 2:30 p.m. EDT on USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
● By The Numbers: Sunday’s Crayon 301 will mark Preece’s fourth NASCAR Cup Series start at the track. He has a best finish of 16th, which came in 2020 after starting 30th for JTG-Daugherty Racing. Preece has made five NASCAR Xfinity Series starts in his career, the first coming in 2013. In 2017, Preece started sixth and finished runner-up and in 2018, he started third and finished third.
● Modified Ace: Preece, the 2013 Whelen Modified Champion, has 26 modified starts at New Hampshire. He has one win, which came in 2021, and eight top fives, 14 top 10s and 266 laps led. He made a name for himself in the only open-wheel series sanctioned by NASCAR with 25 wins and 81 top-five finishes in 171 total starts.
● Welcome Back, Mohawk: This weekend marks the second race as the primary partner on the No. 41 SHR Ford Mustang for Mohawk Northeast. A longtime supporter of Preece, Mohawk Northeast will bring their blue, white, and red colors to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon this weekend to continue their partnership. Mohawk Northeast Inc. is one of the premier heavy-civil contractors in the Northeast. Since 1967 Mohawk has been providing the highest-quality construction services to a wide variety of clients. Specializing in heavy highway, railroad, movable and fixed bridges, and marine construction; Mohawk has completed countless projects within the industry safely, on time, and within budget. Mohawk has the ability to self-perform all phases of construction including electrical, mechanical, structural steel repair and erection, deep foundations, pier and bulkheads, fabrication and coating (AISC & SSPC Certified), and a wide range of marine services. With an extensive fleet of cranes, barges, offshore tugboats, and many other pieces of heavy equipment, Mohawk is a well-established leader in Heavy Civil Construction. Clients include, U.S. Navy, U. S. Coast Guard, USACE, General Dynamics – Electric Boat, Connecticut DOT, Massachusetts DOT, New York DOT, Metro North Railroad, Amtrak, and various private sector clients.
● Lunch with Ryan: Media and fans are invited to Tavern on the Trax in Berlin, Connecticut on Thursday, July 13 beginning at 11:30 a.m. EDT. There will be media interviews taking place, specials and deals on food and drinks in the restaurant and a merchandise trailer stocked with Ryan Preece merchandise to purchase. Preece will participate in an autograph session, too, and some of his longtime partners, like RaceChoice, will also be on-site. Come on out for a fun-filled afternoon in support of Ryan racing at his hometrack, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, on Sunday.
● Last Weekend: The series visited Altanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway in Hampton for the second time of the season last Sunday. Preece qualified 13th on Saturday and his car came alive after the first stage of Sunday’s race. The team made adjustments and he finished Stage 2 in 10th-place, grabbing one stage point for the No. 41 team. He was running in the top 10 for most of the final stage before he got spun on Lap 179. Unfortunately, all cars were called to pit road shortly after the incident due to weather and then the race was called. Preece finished 24th.
● ARCA Menards Series West Win: In June, competitors took on Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway for the season’s second road-course race. Preece kicked off the weekend on the West Coast with a victory in the ARCA Menards Series West race on Friday afternoon. He qualified his No. 9 Bonanza Ford on the pole. From there, he dominated the race by leading 55 of 64 laps and crossed the finish line 9.675 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Sammy Smith.
● Movin’ On Up: The No. 41 SHR Ford Mustang team has continued to improve in recent weeks and have seen more and more consistency, providing a heightened sense of motivation. Preece had a career weekend at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in April, earning his first Cup Series pole and leading a career-high 135 laps. In 19 points-paying events this season, Preece has six top-15 finishes, four of which came in the last seven points-paying races: May 14 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, May 29 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, June 11 at Sonoma and July 2 at the Chicago Street Course.
● Where He Stands: Preece heads to New Hampshire 25th in the driver standings with 326 points.
● Started Things Off: Preece kicked off the 2023 season with a strong showing in the non-points Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, leading a race-high 43 laps but ultimately finishing seventh after a fuel pump issue. He has a best points-paying finish of 12th this season, which came at Phoenix Raceway in March.
You’re extremely proud of your New England roots, how special is it going to New Hampshire Motor Speedway, a place you went to growing up?
“I always say it’s my favorite race weekend of the year. I grew up going to the track with my father and grandfather. I had a lot of success here in the modifieds and it’s just a place I’m comfortable at. Driving in and out of the track each day still brings back a lot of memories. It’s a racers track, there’s really no place like it. Someone like me, I’ve had to fight to get where I am, and I don’t take any of it for granted and this is a place that helped me achieve my goals. There will be a lot of people at the track this weekend that I know from all my time spent there and it’s always just a really special and fun weekend for me. I’m really looking forward to it. I’m heading up early for some appearances and to see some friends and family.”
NASCAR is heading to New England this weekend and your hometrack, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, what are your thoughts heading into the weekend?
“For myself, having a lot of experience, I’ve been racing at New Hampshire since 2007, so think about 16 years of going and racing on that track. There’s a lot of places that we go to on the NASCAR Cup schedule and a lot of us drivers that are newer, I don’t want to say have a disadvantage, but we don’t have as much track time as some of the others. So, when I go to New Hampshire Motor Speedway and even though it’s been in different types of race cars, I look at this weekend as a similar opportunity as when we went to L.A. The quarter-mile background was something that really fit my style and this Next Gen car and all my laps at New Hampshire, I feel like I have a good understanding of what I need to go fast there, and obviously I hope it translates this weekend.”
Is this a race that you’ve been looking forward to and have circled on your calendar?
“Absolutely. I put in a lot of preparation at going over details with Chad (Johnston, crew chief) and amongst my team every week, but when you see places like this, you put in that extra little bit. That little bit more to make sure because, you know at the end of the day, me going to New Hampshire versus me going to Kansas is my opportunity; my opportunity to win at a place like New Hampshire is greater. Definitely, I have a really good idea and feel for what I need to get around New Hampshire Motor Speedway fast. We’ve been heading in that direction. I feel really confident with what we’re bringing that we can be a contender.”
There will be a new tire this weekend at New Hampshire, what does that do for your preparation?
“That’s a good question. For me, there are some what-ifs. You really don’t know how that tire is going to react until we do get there or I get some lap times there. They did a wheelforce test, I want to say it was a few weeks ago or a month or so ago, so there is some data there and we use the tools the best we can with not having testing for ourselves now, so that’s why going into Monday and Tuesday post-New Hampshire Motor Speedway is going to be a nice moment for our 41 team and SHR to gather more data for ourselves.”
Bad luck struck again this past weekend at Atlanta, how do you stay positive when these things happen?
“It’s a building process. I’ve built enough race cars to know that some things can happen overnight and sometimes they take time. One thing I will say is we’ve been doing a good job of executing for what we can and sometimes the chips are stacked against you with track position or whether cautions fall untimely, but you need to know within your team that everybody is pulling the rope in the same direction and that’s the case. I see the gains each week, the little gains that we make each and every week, so even though, like for example, Atlanta, 24th, but we ran top 10 a good amount of that race until it ended, and I felt like we would have been fighting in the top 10 or top five had that weather not come in. Most people are gonna see 24th, I see a day of ‘hey, we had a good handling race car, let’s continue in this direction.’”
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