Last Saturday night at Daytona international Speedway, the stands, and everyone in America, watching on television, held their collective breaths as they watched in horror when Ryan Preece and his number 41 car was hit from behind and went sailing through the air rolling 10 times before landing on the infield grass on all four tires. Preece exited the car on his own power and was assisted to a stretcher by safety workers who transported him to a local hospital for observation. He was released the following morning and is ready to race again.
NASCAR has given Ryan Preece the all clear and he will be at Darlington Raceway this weekend for the annual Labor Day weekend race the Southern 500.
Preece spoke on the news on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio saying, “I’m good. It’s been quite a week, that’s for sure. But definitely, definitely really excited to have been given the OK to race this weekend at Darlington. Because there’s nothing that I love more than my family and racing race cars. So to be able to go to Darlington this weekend and race with my 41 team, we’re excited and ready to get back out there.”
Preece added, “I was ready to go do tests and everything on Sunday, you know, to make sure I was cleared. But we wanted to go through all the steps and we did it twice, just to make sure there were no symptoms that appeared later in the week. And everything’s good. I feel great, no concussion and I’m ready to get out there and go race.
That just goes to show the amount of work that NASCAR has really been doing to keep improving this race car and obviously having that car at the R&D Center, they’re gonna look over and continue to work to make it even safer. I’m not downplaying the wreck by any means, because it was certainly probably the biggest wreck I’ve ever taken in my career, but I’m sitting here, I’m talking to you guys right now. There’s nothing stopping me from racing this weekend. And I’m really ready to get to Darlington.”
The Darling race is the first race for the 16 Playoff drivers who are hoping they will make it to the championship race in Phoenix. Preece is not among those drivers after finishing the regular season in 26th place.
Preece is one of four drivers for Stewart-Haas Racing