When Stewart-Haas Racing announced early during the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season that they would be shutting down once the season concluded, there were questions surrounding the futures of all four of their drivers.
Those questions were perhaps loudest as they related to Ryan Preece, who had already once been left out of the Cup Series completely.
Preece got his full-time start in the Cup Series with JTG Daugherty Racing in 2019 and finished in 26th place in the point standings. He took a step back in 2020 and finished in 29th, and there were questions about whether he would run the full season in 2021, since the team no longer had him in a chartered entry. He did, and he finished in 27th.
Preece lost his ride after the 2021 season when JTG Daugherty Racing made the expected reduction to one car, and he only ended up making two starts in 2022 with Rick Ware Racing.
He landed his ride with Stewart-Haas Racing in 2023 when the team opted to demote the struggling Cole Custer back to the Xfinity Series. But Preece didn't perform that much better than Custer, recording only two top 10 finishes during the entire season. And while he recorded five in 2024, he dropped from 23rd to 26th in the standings.
That very well could have been it for his NASCAR career, having already effectively been extended one "lifeline".
But Rick Ware Racing leased out one of their two charters to RFK Racing, which expanded to three cars, and they signed Preece to drive the new No. 60 entry in 2025.
There were immediately questions about the move, questions about whether or not Preece's performance from five full relatively lackluster seasons in the Cup Series were enough to justify landing one of the top open seats in the garage for 2025.
There were a lot of individuals who assumed Preece's signing was merely a kind of placeholder until RFK Racing could find another suitable driver for the No. 60 Ford.
But seven races into his stint with RFK Racing, Preece has been nothing shy of impressive. He was a contender to win at Phoenix Raceway, and though that didn't pan out, he followed that up with finishes of third place at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, ninth at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and seventh at Martinsville Speedway.
He has vaulted himself into 14th place in the point standings, placing him inside the provisional playoff picture, and has emerged as a contender nearly every week. He qualified on the front row for this afternoon's race at Darlington Raceway.
"I love what he's doing," team co-owner and driver Brad Keselowski told Beyond the Flag. "We're really proud of him. We want to see him get to victory lane and get his first Cup win. He seems to be getting closer to that."
Preece's success has been one of the big surprises of the year for a lot of the NASCAR fanbase. But Keselowski isn't surprised about the success of the resurgent 34-year-old Berlin, Connecticut native.
"I thought he was going to win Phoenix," he continued. "He was right there, but beyond that, he's just executing at a high level right now, and their team's really clicking. I'm super happy for him. He's living up to everything we thought he could do, and I hope he keeps going, keeps pushing, and finds that little bit more he needs to get to victory lane. He’s certainly running well."
We hear it all the time in the NFL about how teams fail young quarterbacks more often than young quarterbacks truly fail teams. It is really all about being in the right situation, and if a driver isn't in a good situation, no matter how talented, he is all but set up to fail.
Was Preece ever really in a situation to succeed before this year?
JTG Daugherty Racing (now Hyak Motorsports) have never been a top-tier program, and Josh Berry's first career win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in just his fifth start with Wood Brothers Racing all but solidified the fact that Stewart-Haas Racing closed down as a shell of what they once were.
Preece's success, which comes after his career was all but written off twice, has only further cemented it.
In his third different Cup Series opportunity, he is finally set up for success. And he is capitalizing.
Let's not forget that when RFK Racing brought in Keselowski as a co-owner in 2022, there were even questions about Chris Buescher's future. All he has done since is reel off three straight winning seasons, including a round of 8 playoff run two years ago during which he won three straight oval races.
Buescher currently finds himself in 11th place in the standings with four top 10 finishes.
Ironically, it is Keselowski who has struggled to start the year. He finds himself in 30th in the standings without a top 10 finish, but he is confident that he can match the success of his teammates.
"I think the way NASCAR is now, every year is a must-win," Keselowski said. "There are no gimmies, and that doesn't make each race a must-win, but certainly when you have the opportunity, when you have the car, and the day where things are clicking, you need to make it count."
He thinks that he and the team have a good chance to win Sunday's Goodyear 400.
"Yeah, I do," he continued. "Darlington's probably our best track. It's my best track statistically with the Next Gen car, and we've had some flashes of brilliance. We haven't put it all together. I'm optimistic that we can do that this weekend."
Buescher was in position to win the spring race at the four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometer) Darlington, South Carolina oval last year before contact with 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, and Keselowski capitalized, scoring his first win since coming to RFK Racing from Team Penske in 2022.
The team didn't have quite that much speed in the regular season finale at the same track, but Keselowski is confident that they have found something for this weekend.
"Yeah, we didn't run as well as we would have liked to have run in the fall race," he said. "We kind of slipped off a little bit there and lost some of the pace that we had, so that was frustrating, but we're still knocking on the door to get there, and I'm optimistic that we found the pieces we need."
Tune in to Fox Sports 1 this Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the Goodyear 400 from Darlington Raceway. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action!