‘Air Preece’ readies for another battle at Daytona

Ryan Preece was sitting in the simulator and scrolling Reddit when he saw a Photoshopped photo of himself in an astronaut suit. The moment created an opportunity for Preece to embrace the humor of having gone airborne in two of his last three visits to Daytona, and he chose to make the photo his social media profile picture.

“The internet is just full of really funny memes, if you choose to look at it that way,” Preece said this week, “and I’m somebody who can have a good laugh at different things that people come up with.”

Preece took another opportunity to play off his Daytona troubles with a special helmet for Saturday night. He unveiled to the public earlier this week, in a photo, he captioned, “3 … 2 … 1 … Liftoff!”

The helmet, designed by Greg Stumpff and the team from Off Axis Paint, is a nod to what a fighter pilot wears. Preece’s idea and humor were even embraced by his team owner before bringing it to life.

“It’s probably one of my favorite helmets.”

The first incident for Preece came in the summer of 2023 on the Daytona backstretch. Preece was spun from the outside lane and came across the nose of the driver to his inside. It then went airborne, landing on its hood before bouncing back into the air and violently barrel-rolling multiple times.

Preece showed up to Darlington Raceway a week later, uninjured but with bloodshot eyes. He never missed a race.

In February, it happened again. Preece was in the middle of the pack going down the backstretch in the Daytona 500 when Christopher Bell, who had been spun from the outside of the front row, ended up in his path. Preece’s car launched off of Bell’s car, went airborne, and slid on its roof across the track before coming back on its wheels.

“I think for me as a race car driver, and maybe some aren’t like this, but I’m pretty numb to big accidents like that because it’s part of it,” said Preece about having any particular emotions about visiting Daytona. “When we show up every single weekend, there is a massive opportunity – it doesn’t matter if it’s Michigan or Daytona or Talladega or Atlanta – to have a massive wreck. For us as race car drivers, if you’re going to compete and go out there and do your job to the best of your ability, you have to have absolutely no fear. So, I just choose to forget about it and kind of bury it deep inside to where I don’t even think about it.

“Every time we show up to Daytona, I think, ‘Well, it’s going to go differently this time.’ Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s just the game we play. But I choose to try and always give good pushes and make good decisions, that way I’m not the one who is making those decisions that cause that big wreck. But at the same time, we all need to be aggressive, and it is what it is.”

Preece hopes the internet memes after this Daytona race will be of him and his new helmet, celebrating a victory.

“I don’t know; that’s a great question,” said Preece of what his call sign would be. “I should have thought of something for that. Hmm. Air Preece. We’ll go with that.”