RFK Racing's Ryan Preece has been solidly inside the provisional NASCAR Cup Series playoff field all year, due to his consistency to start the 2026 season.
But being consistent is quite a bit different than being consistently good.
Even though Preece was ninth in total points (excluding his penalty) following the season's 12th points race at Watkins Glen International, his position in the top 16 always felt fragile.
His streak of 11 straight top 18 finishes was great, but it was great in name only. It featured just two top 10 finishes, and he didn't finish higher than eighth at any point during that stretch.
He then crashed out of the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and a radiator issue knocked him out of Sunday night's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.
And just like that, he's below the NASCAR playoff cut line.
He's now two points behind Team Penske's Austin Cindric, who had been in the top 16 before the Coca-Cola 600 before Joe Gibbs Racing's Chase Briscoe knocked him out a week ago, for the 16th and final transfer spot.
Cindric only finished 26th at Nashville after he was involved in a wreck, but that result, coupled with the seven stage points he scored with a fourth place finish in stage two, ended up being enough to get him back to the good side of the cutoff.
Briscoe finished third at Nashville and now finds himself 14th in points, 39 points above the cutoff. 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace is 15th, 34 points to the good. Team Penske's Joey Logano is just seven points behind Preece, nine points behind Cindric for 16th.
Preece would notably still be ahead of Cindric had it not been for a 25-point penalty he was issued by NASCAR after the early May race at Texas Motor Speedway, when he seemingly intentionally dumped Joe Gibbs Racing's Ty Gibbs and knocked him out of the race.
The next race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the FireKeepers Casino 400, which is set to be shown live on Amazon Prime Video from Michigan International Speedway starting at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 7.
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