{"id":23530,"date":"2019-02-17T20:28:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T02:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=23530"},"modified":"2019-02-17T21:28:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T03:28:34","slug":"rookie-ryan-preece-makes-a-splash-in-monster-energy-series-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/17\/rookie-ryan-preece-makes-a-splash-in-monster-energy-series-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Rookie Ryan Preece makes a splash in Monster Energy Series debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 As far as Daytona 500 debuts go Ryan Preece<\/strong> was plenty encouraged if not wholly satisfied with his eighth-place finish Sunday night. He was running top-five, had even pushed into the top-three with a lap to go, but got shuffled out by veterans as the checkered flag flew to close out the overtime season-opener.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the moments after climbing out of his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, he stood on pit road and looked at replays of the race finish on the giant television screen a few yards away.<\/p>\n

There were the final two laps for review. Toyota driver Denny Hamlin earned his second Daytona 500 win and on the last lap, it looked as if Preece may finish on the podium in his 500 debut. Instead, a last lap shuffle – so typical of this race \u2013 resulted in Preece losing positions as the field took the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

But the 28-year old Connecticut native still managed a smile at his top-10 standing by his car and shaking hands with his smiling JTG Daugherty Racing crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cSitting here watching this I\u2019m probably going to get frustrated with myself because there\u2019s a couple things I could have done different to help my chances,” Preece said as he watched the replay. \u201cI was so committed to pushing Joey [Logano], I focused more on him than I did some of the runs I probably should have focused on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all it\u2019s a good day. It\u2019s an eighth-place finish, a great day for JTG.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ryan Preece, driver of the #47 Kroger.Com Camaro ZL1, stops in his pit on his way to an 8th place finish Sunday, February 17, 2019 in season opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona, Florida.(Photo by Andrew CoppleyHHP for Chevy Racing)<\/p><\/div>\n

Another replay of the race finish showed again over the speedway as Preece finished speaking with reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so frustrating watching it,” Preece said, obviously trying to summon a smile. \u201cWe were in third place on the white flag lap and got flushed. \u201c<\/p>\n

Perhaps in the coming days, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup rookie will look back at the closing laps as encouragement. His competitors were impressed with the job he did and the crowd seemed to be as well. He was competitive all day, avoided multiple late-race accidents and put himself in position to be a factor as the field approached the most famous checkered flag in NASCAR.<\/p>\n

The reigning NASCAR Cup champion Joey Logano, was certainly complimentary of his fellow Connecticut native.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was intense as you would expect with the Daytona 500 on the line and I had a great push by the 47 of Ryan Preece and I thought that was cool,” Logano said after climbing out of his car. \u201cWe grew up racing quarter-midgets against each other in Connecticut and it just shows that dreams can really come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud to be racing with him in the Daytona 500. I think that\u2019s super-cool.”<\/p>\n

Preece also recognized the opportunity to partner with Logano, a former Daytona 500 winner, and appreciated the restrictor plate lesson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he does a really good job at these restrictor plate races,” Preece said. \u201cI have a good relationship with Joey. Other than that, he\u2019s really good at making holes. He got me to third and I didn\u2019t do a good enough job blocking and trying to help him move forward to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a learning experience. Everyone talks about learning and I can tell you multiple things I learned today to help me better my career but also learn what I need to do different the next time I come.\u201d<\/p>\n

A two-time winner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Preece eventually walked off pit road much more encouraged than frustrated. This is the biggest opportunity of his life and Sunday night was a good start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a racer. \u2026 and I\u2019m competitive so I\u2019m going to nitpick myself right now,” Preece said. \u201cWhen I get in my truck and drive home and watch this finish I\u2019m going to say, \u2018man, I could have had fifth. I could have had third.\u2019 But at the end of the day, it\u2019s still a great day.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll in all, today\u2019s been about finishing the race, but hopefully gaining people that will work with me in the future. If I can keep on putting that group of people together for maybe the July race [at Daytona] or Talladega [Ala.], I can build that reputation of \u2018hey, we can work with him.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we will run up front more at the end of these races and put ourselves in a good situation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 As far as Daytona 500 debuts go Ryan Preece was plenty encouraged if not wholly satisfied with his eighth-place finish Sunday night. He was running top-five, had even pushed into the top-three with a lap to go, but got shuffled out by veterans as the checkered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":23542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[42,287,16,580],"class_list":["post-23530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar","tag-ryan-preece"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/47Preece8th31Reddick37thDaytona500-03.jpg?fit=1200%2C754&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-67w","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23545,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23530\/revisions\/23545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}