● Back In The Lone Star State: Ryan Preece and the No. 41 Autodesk Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) are taking on the 1.5-mile oval at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. EDT. Live coverage will be provided by USA, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
● By The Numbers: Sunday afternoon’s race at Texas will mark Preece’s seventh career Cup Series start at the track. He has a best finish there of 18th, which came in the October 2020 race for JTG-Daughtery Racing. His first career Texas start was in November 2015. Preece has four Texas starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with a best finish of fifth in April 2018 for Joe Gibbs Racing. He started 13th on his way to the fifth top-five finish of his Xfinity Series career. Preece also made one NASCAR Truck Series start at Texas, which came in May 2022 for David Gilliland Racing. He started fifth, led 27 laps and finished third.
● Welcome Back, Autodesk: San Francisco-based Autodesk is back on the No. 41 this weekend, sporting the black and white colors for Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. From the greenest buildings to the cleanest cars, from the smartest factories to the biggest stories, amazing things are created every day with Autodesk. For four decades, Autodesk has worked together with its customers to transform how things are made and, in doing so, it has also transformed what can be made. A car’s performance now inspires the method of its manufacture, a city’s infrastructure helps predict the unpredictable, and the creation of ever bigger universes shapes ever-bigger stories. Today, Autodesk’s solutions span countless industries empowering innovators everywhere. But the company is restless to do more. Autodesk doesn’t believe in waiting for progress, it believes in making it. By combining and recombining technologies. By blurring boundaries, reinventing rules, and merging fields. By unleashing talent and unlocking insights across industries. By helping customers converge on solutions to the challenges everyone faces today. Autodesk believes that when provided the right tools to work with and think flexibly, people have the power to transform what actually needs making. The power to design and make a better world for all.
● Last Weekend: Preece returned to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway last Saturday night for some short-track action under the lights. He qualified the No. 41 Ford Mustang 17th and finished Stage 1 in that same position. From there, he rallied toward the front and was able to stay out of trouble, finishing ninth in Stage 2. Fast pit stops and strong tire strategy kept him near the front and he took the checkered flag in 12th place, marking his eighth top-15 and third top-12 of the season.
● Where He Stands: Preece heads to Texas 24th in the driver standings with 484 points.
Ryan Preece;
What are your thoughts heading to Texas this weekend after having a strong race at Bristol last Saturday?
“I’m looking forward to getting to Texas and seeing what this No. 41 team can do. We’ve been working hard on different setups and figuring out what works best for us to show the most speed at these types of tracks. We had a really good weekend at Bristol and that’s exactly what we needed. I’ve mentioned it before, but consistencty is what we’re looking for most in these final races, so we want to keep that going. SHR has had speed at Texas in the past and I think, if we bring that with us this weekend, we can have a really decent day.”
Although you’re not competing for the championship this season, does anything change in these final races from your perspective?
“Nothing changes for me. This is my job and this is what I’ve worked my whole life for, so nothing changes for me. I’m at the shop during the week, in the simulator and working out. I keep the same routine as best I can during the week. My crew chief Chad (Johnston) and I are always talking and working on different ways to approach things to consistently get better. We want to continue qualifying better and better each weekend and then putting ourselves in position to run up front and stay out of trouble throughout the entire race. That will be important this week at Texas and definitely next weekend at Talladega. I’m looking forward to it.”
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