Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Southern 500 Media Availability — Darlington Raceway
Saturday, September 5, 2026
Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 60 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, is the most recent winner in the NASCAR Cup Series after his victory in the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway. He stopped by the Darlington Raceway infield media center before today’s qualifying session to talk about the past week and his hopes for the Chase.
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 Thornton’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse – DOES IT FEEL LIKE THINGS ARE GETTING BACK TO NORMAL? “I’m happy I have my voice back, well, kind of anyways. I definitely felt like I made it a heck of a week, but it’s business as usual. It’s nice to know the final 10 weeks we’re racing for something. We’ll try to go on a run. We definitely have momentum on our side.”
HOW WAS YOUR FIRST WEEK AS A CUP SERIES WINNER? “I think at New Smyrna it was alright. It didn’t really change much for me, honestly. The nice part about it is all the things that we kind of overcame, one of them being that points penalty. I really don’t have to hear much about it, other than I guess the owner’s being five points ahead of the driver’s right now. Just because the Clash was not a points paying win race didn’t mean I looked at it any different, so I looked at it as we’ve won two races this year and throughout the season we’ve had some moments – a month or two – that we wish would have went a little bit better, but I feel like we’re heading in a really good direction right now, so I’m excited to see how practice and qualifying go for us later today. And then we’ll give these next 10 weeks everything we’ve got just like we did last week.”
AS THE LOWEST SEED IN THE CHASE, DO YOU FEEL LIKE A CHAMPIONSHIP RUN IS WITHIN YOUR REACH? “I don’t remember who it was in the NCAA Tournament a few years ago, but they were a complete underdog. I just remember there was an underdog and nobody expected them to go on and win, so I think a lot of it is circumstances and how you are as a team. I think in previous years usually the guy that was 16th in points was 28th or 30th and, I don’t know, their season wasn’t going really that great. I’m not saying ours had gone phenomenal, but I would say over the past three weeks, four weeks, we’ve taken a turn and we’ve had moments, so when I look at the next 10 weeks, these are all tracks that I feel really good about. We’ve had some decent runs and based on where Derrick and I are at right now and the 60 team, why not? If I came to Darlington, Gateway, Bristol – all those places – and if I showed up thinking I couldn’t win, I mean I’m not the race car driver you want. I feel like this weekend I’m excited about it and we’ll do the best we can. If we go on a tear and have a little bit of luck where those other guys don’t have the best weeks, it’s possible. I think you saw last week – 67 points, that’s a big difference.”
YOUR MOMENTUM CAN’T BE DISCOUNTED, CAN IT? “How you feel as a race car driver when you show up every week, that is real. You show up and if you’ve had three or four weeks where you’ve wrecked in a row, I mean, the month of June it felt like I couldn’t do anything right and if you think it doesn’t affect you as a driver, you’re lying to yourself. You’re just going into a race thinking, ‘Man, I just want to finish this one.’ So, for me, being aggressive – Loudon is the one I’ll look at because we had a strong car there and we were around the top five, top three all day for the most part. So, that’s why when I look at Darlington I think, why not? If we can pick up where we left off last week and have a strong run here, who knows?”
WHAT IS THE MINDSET OF THE TEAM GOING INTO THIS? ARE YOU APT TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE WHEN IT COMES TO THINGS LIKE CHASING STAGE POINTS? “Yeah. Honestly, that’s what I really like about where we’re at right now is because we have nothing to lose. The guys that are up front, like Denny, he’s had a phenomenal year. He’s had phenomenal years, you know what I mean? When I look at where we’re at, if we’re aggressive and it doesn’t work out, we’re at the bottom, you know what i mean? So, we can throw the Hail Mary’s and do the risky things and if we get good results out of it, then that’s great. I told Derrick, I went, ‘Are you going to give the same type of interview that you gave last week?’ He looked at me and said, ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘When you told NASCAR and everybody on pit road that we were gonna qualify on the pole. We were gonna win the stages and win the race. I want that same Derrick.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘I want that same Ryan.’ I said, ‘Alright. Deal. You hold up your end and I’ll hold up mine.’”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO CELEBRATE WITH DERRICK ON HIS FIRST POINTS WIN AS A CREW CHIEF? “Not just Derrick. I think of our entire team, when it comes to the pit crew, the road crew, there are two guys on it that have won a Cup Series race before. Everybody else hasn’t. That’s pretty cool to see the genuine emotion of our team, not only in Victory Lane but also at my house and my shop the next day. That was a lot of fun. It’s a great group to be around. I don’t know, it still feels surreal, but we have a job to do and I’ve been saying it all week – the clock reset at midnight. We’ve to focus on this one.”
THE FANS IN NEW ENGLAND WANT TO KNOW AFTER WATCHING THE REPLACEMENTS LAST WEEK, WHAT MOVIE DID YOU WATCH THIS WEEK? “I don’t think I had any time to watch any movies, but Hangover? Yeah, I lived it. I think they’re gonna write a movie after me on that one. No, honestly, I didn’t watch any movie this week. I think it’s still just kind of thinking about that one. It’s funny because the Monday of Daytona that movie had been on. I’m like, ‘Oh, man. I like this movie.’ And then we have a Group Me like most teams have and you start sending little memes or little clips and everybody’s morale kind of goes up, but I don’t know. If there was gonna be a movie that I would watch tonight for tomorrow, it would probably Days of Thunder.”
HOW DO YOU DEFINE A HARD-NOSED RACER? “I think a lot of people kind of have different terminologies of it. Me personally, a racer from where I’m from is somebody, I just remember all the nights when I was 20, 21 all the way up until I moved down here, driving on a Wednesday or Thursday night going up to Thompson Speedway. You get done. You get home at one in the morning. You wake up or if you were heading to scale the car, like mine was about an hour away when I would race at Stafford, you go do that. You head home around two, three, four in the morning. Wake up at eight or nine, head to the racetrack and it was just repeat constantly. No matter what it took, you were there whether it was the next day, the next week or what-not. For me, it was working on race cars, it was everything racing no matter what it took, where I had to be, it was do it. And nothing against it, I wish there were opportunities where you could just show up with your helmet, but I liked being a part of the process, so that’s what my definition of a racer is, but there are all different types.”
YOU HAVE MENTIONED THE PATRIOTS, RED SOX AND BRUINS A LOT THE LAST WEEK. IS THAT JUST A NEW ENGLAND KIND OF THING? “I think that’s just a New England thing. To be honest with you, if you’re around New England natives, we’re pretty passionate about our sports. I happened to grow up very central of Connecticut, which is the Hartford area. If you grew up in that area, you’re either a Yankee fan or your a Red Sox fan. So, I just kind of use them as an example because I’m proud of being from New England, proud of being from Connecticut. You could look at it like the Red Sox, the curse. Patriots when it came to Atlanta versus them in 2017, just in those really back against the wall moments, there’s just been a lot of stories, so that’s why.”
HOW MANY GRAND SLAMS DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED IN THIS CHASE TO POTENTIALLY WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “A lot. I need more than that. I probably need a lot of luck, but earlier this week in media day, NASCAR had us pull – I don’t know if you guys have seen the tape measure trick where if your car number is 60, for example, you pull that tape measure out and you’ve got to get it on your number. Well, I did. That was pretty cool. I’m not gonna lie. I felt pretty lucky in that moment, so I’m hoping that luck doesn’t run out because I’ve had a lot of bad luck in my career. Maybe it’s time for the good side of it.”
WE HAVE A LONGER PRACTICE SESSION TODAY COMPARED TO EARLIER IN THE YEAR HERE. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO GET OUT THAT TODAY? “It’s definitely hot today. I can tell you that, I mean, the guys that wait 10 minutes or five minutes to go our are gonna feel like superheroes compared to some of the ones that go out right away. It’s nice to be able to have a second set of tires because, for us, if we want to make an adjustment this is that track that if you’re out there for two laps, three laps and you come in and make an adjustment, it’s almost pointless. You’re not gonna really feel much. The car is already kind of going through it’s migration, so it’s nice to have that and here, I know everybody likes to look at practice and they see who is the fastest. That, to be honest with you, is not what I look at. What I look at is who is at lap 10 and beyond. I could pretty much wipe away lap one to lap nine and just see what somebody’s car looks like at lap 10 and beyond and tell you if they’re gonna be good or not. This is a place that, not only starting an hour earlier compared to last year, it’s gonna go through some migration, especially in key moments. I’m pumped about it and I’m excited that we have a full 50 minute or however many minutes of practice and two sets of tires. It makes a big difference.”
THE FORMAT IS DIFFERENT THIS YEAR. IF THINGS DON’T WORK OUT IN THE FIRST TWO WEEKS AND YOU GET HOT IN WEEKS THREE, FOUR, FIVE OR SIX, IT DOESN’T COST YOU AS MUCH AS IN THE PAST? “I’m a fan of it. Trust me, there are a lot of different ways. You can critique every system no matter what it is. If you’re a purist of what it was back in the day, I’ve won championships in different series that were just traditional. These are the rules and this is what’s been set up, so I’m a huge fan of the direction that we’ve gone. I don’t know. We had a heck of a week. I closed in like 600 points or 500 points on Denny Hamlin, so you never know.”
