Preece comes oh so close, but no cigar at Talladega

Ryan Preece came within a few feet of winning his first NASCAR Cup Series race Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway but was on the short end of a photo finish with Austin Cindric.

The margin of victory was 0.022s. It was a career-best finish for Preece in the Cup Series, and it was the second top-five finish for him and his RFK Racing team in the last six races.

“I’m happy,” Preece said. “But as a racer, you want to win, right?”

Preece and Cindric controlled the field in a two-by-two formation after the final pit cycle was completed with less than 20 laps to go. There was not much movement as the laps wound down, as each lane would yo-yo ahead with momentum before the other took it back.

On the final lap, Preece had his Ford Mustang a nose ahead of his Ford rival coming through the tri-oval. But Preece was in the outside lane, and Cindric, on the inside, got a tow as he quickly closed on the lap cars of Kyle Busch and Josh Berry.

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“I felt like coming through the tri-oval, I’m like, 'All right, we’re all sticking together,' and nobody was really leaving me,” Preece said. “I wish I didn’t have to shade up so much and maybe side-draft Austin to pull him back. But ultimately, thank you to RFK, BAM, Kroger, Celsius, all the partners that we have at RFK, because without this opportunity, I’d probably be back in Connecticut racing modifieds. This was for the modified mainly crowd.”

Preece was credited with leading six laps. Sunday was his best finish at Talladega Superspeedway, and as a driver who has not had the best luck on superspeedways, and experienced two flips in the last two years, he’s now finished three of the previous six races held at Daytona and Talladega.

“We did all we could,” he said. “I felt like we executed Stage 3 exactly like we needed to. We came out in the front of our group and worked our way through that traffic. We had the opportunity to get to the top lane, and then from there it was just managing those cars behind us and not giving up what we gained.

“I’m really proud of everybody at RFK for this race car. I’m just really super appreciative of Jack (Roush), Brad (Keselowski), the Fenway Group for this opportunity. Honestly, without Kroger and BAM and Celsius and a lot of the other partners today, I’d probably be back in Connecticut. I’m really excited about the rest of this year. It’s a great day, but I wanted to win.”