Ryan Preece scratched his name off of this year’s Silly Season list after announcing that he will retain driving responsibilities of the No. 41 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing for the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season.
The announcement, which was made through SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, comes as the 32-year-old Preece from Berlin, Connecticut, is campaigning in his fourth full-time season in the Cup Series level and first with Stewart-Haas Racing, where he has notched a single top-five result, one pole position, 141 laps led and an average-finishing result of 21.9 through 30-scheduled starts.
“I’m gonna be here with the No. 41 at [Stewart-Haas Racing] next year,” Preece said on SiriusXM. “Definitely looking forward to it.”
Preece, the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion and race winner across the NASCAR Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series divisions who made his first five Cup career starts for Premium Motorsports in 2015, first became a full-time competitor in NASCAR’s premier series in 2019 when he replaced AJ Allmendinger in the No. 47 entry for JTG-Daugherty Racing. Transitioning to the team’s No. 37 entry in 2021, Preece recorded a combined two top-five results and nine top-10 results with his best points result being 26th in 2019.
After JTG-Daugherty Racing scaled down to a one-car entry in 2022, Preece spent the season competing in 15 events across NASCAR’s top three national touring series, two occurring in the Cup level with Rick Ware Racing. During the season, he became a reserve competitor for Stewart-Haas Racing and was eventually named a full-time Cup competitor for SHR’s No. 41 entry for the 2023 season last November, where he replaced Cole Custer.
Through 30 starts this season, Preece’s highlights include a fifth-place run at Richmond Raceway in August and winning his first pole position at Martinsville Speedway in April, where he would lead a race-high 135 laps before finishing 15th after being nabbed with an early pit road speeding penalty. Amid the strong performances, Preece’s season has been mired with on-track difficulties, including 16 results outside the top 20 and five DNFs, including his harrowing barrel-roll accident at Daytona International Speedway last August while vying for a 2023 Cup Series Playoff spot.
Despite the struggles endured throughout this season, Preece remains optimistic about the progress made by Stewart-Haas Racing that can enable him to still be competitive with six races remaining in this year’s Cup Series schedule and prior to the 2024 season.
“We’ve made a lot of gains,” Preece added. “Moving forward, I like the direction of the things that we’ve been working on here at SHR. We have a good couple races coming up.”
Preece’s announcement adds another missing element to Stewart-Haas Racing’s 2024 Cup Series lineup as he will compete alongside Chase Briscoe, who is signed through 2026, and incoming rookie Josh Berry, who will be replacing the retiring Kevin Harvick at season’s end. Additional announcements regarding SHR’s No. 10 entry, veteran Aric Almirola and program for the 2024 season remain to be determined.
With his plans for next season set, Preece’s next scheduled NASCAR Cup Series start of this season will occur at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, October 1. The event’s broadcast time is slated to occur at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
