Preece surprised by penalty for Gibbs Texas incident

Ryan Preece admitted he was surprised by the penalty NASCAR levied against him earlier this week for his incident with Ty Gibbs at Texas Motor Speedway.

Preece was fined $50,000 and docked 25 points for an on-track incident in which it appeared he intentionally spun Gibbs going into Turn 3 on lap 101. But the RFK Racing driver denied, in the moment, that he had hit Gibbs, who had previously expressed frustration over the in-car radio for how he was being raced. But afterwards, Preece acknowledged that he didn’t cut the Joe Gibbs Racing driver a break going into the corner.

“Honestly, a bit surprised,” said Preece. “But I’m thankful that NASCAR has an appeals process so that I can feel like I can be heard and let that process play itself out.”

NASCAR viewed the incident as intentional, given Preece’s radio comments and then the subsequent contact. RFK Racing announced its intention to appeal the penalty, but no date for the hearing has been set.

“I was on my mower mowing my lawn at about 4:30 in a not very great signaled area, so I saw I had a missed call (from NASCAR),” Preece said. “So, when I made the call back, I found out I had a penalty. I’m thankful for RFK, I’m thankful for Chip [Bowers, team president], I’m thankful for everybody there for the support, thankful for Chris [Buescher] and Brad [Keselowski] for being great teammates as they are, and I’m excited to go through the appeals process. Because like I said, at least I feel like I can go through it and share my side.”

Preece dropped one spot in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings with the penalty, going from 12th to 13th. But he remains in a Chase position.

Until the appeal is heard and decided, Preece will not engage with Gibbs about the matter if he chooses to do so at all. But Preece did say that, going forwards, he is not going to change who he is in terms of what is said on the radio, even if he doesn’t win the appeal.

“At the beginning of the season, we talked about being ourselves, so I’m not going to change being myself,” Preece said. “But what I can say is I’m excited for the appeals process, and I look forward to going through that.”