Ryan Preece: 'My Expectations Are High' in New Gig with RFK Racing

With the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign set to begin Sunday at Bowman Gray Stadium, Ryan Preece embarks on a new journey with RFK Racing, driving the No. 60 Ford Mustang Dark Horse.

With the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign set to begin Sunday at Bowman Gray Stadium, Ryan Preece embarks on a new journey with RFK Racing. / Photo Credit: Tyson Gifford, Racing America On SI

For Berlin, Connecticut-native Ryan Preece, the kick-off of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign marks the beginning of a brand-new era in the career of the successful grassroots racer.

The 26-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour winner will be joining forces with Roush Fenway Keselowski (RFK) Racing for the new season, piloting the newly minted No. 60 Ford Mustang Dark Horse in the top echelon of NASCAR’s National Series.

To date, the 34-year-old driver’s tenure in the NASCAR Cup Series has been rocky, entering his sixth (non-consecutive) season with his third different organization. After three years at JTG Daugherty Racing, Preece was forced to take a reserve driver role for Stewart-Haas Racing, which parlayed itself into part-time efforts in the NASCAR Xfinity and Craftsman Truck Series.

With strong results in limited starts, Preece was tapped to advance back to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2023, this time with Stewart-Haas Racing, where he would spend the next two seasons; until the championship-winning organization confirmed it would shut its doors following the 2024 season.

“I feel like every opportunity has had a lot of different life lessons and certain things that I feel have helped me get ready for this moment,” Preece told members of the media. “I had a great time at Stewart-Haas with Tony [Stewart] and Chad [Johnston] and all those guys over there. There were some challenges, but there was also some point that were good, so all lessons I’m bringing here to RFK.”

Despite the challenges presented to Preece over the last two seasons at Stewart-Haas Racing, the 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified champion has remained confident in his ability, setting some lofty goals for himself and RFK Racing’s third team – which hasn’t run full-time since 2016.

"My expectations are high. They've always been high. I don't ever set a bar low. I always want to set it really high and winning races is the goal."

- Ryan Preece, Driver of the RFK No. 60

“I didn’t move down here and make the sacrifices and put my family through what I’ve done to come down here and just be a part of the show. That’s not who I am as a racer. I’m somebody that wants to win races. It doesn’t matter if I’m at my local short track or racing Cup on Sunday. The goal is to win.”

Nearly a decade after making his Cup Series debut, Preece’s tenure in the NASCAR Cup Series has come full circle, with Tad Geschickter bringing major sponsorship to RFK Racing for the upcoming season, in the form of Kroger. Geschickter is the former owner of JTG Daugherty Racing, the team that gave Preece his first full-time opportunity at NASCAR's top-level.

That level of familiarity, first with Kroger and Tad Geschickter, and secondly with Chris Buescher, who was a teammate of Preece’s at JTG Daugherty Racing in 2019, is important for the driver who has already spent much of the off-season “studying” at RFK Racing, getting used to the intricacies of the organization.

For Preece, there’s no better place to get things started than a tight-quarters quarter-mile short track like Bowman Gray Stadium – even if RFK Racing has struggled the last couple of seasons at the LA Memorial Coliseum.

“As much as it is an exhibition race, anybody that says they don’t want to win at Bowman Gray [Stadium] is lying, so I’m ready to get there and do double-duty and get this season going because, that’s another thing, when you’re talking about it and people are asking questions, you just feel like you’re answering those same questions over and over and you’re just ready to get going to the racetrack and start doing what you’ve done all your life.”

In his last three starts in the Cook Out Clash, all at the LA Memorial Coliseum – two for Stewart-Haas Racing and one for Rick Ware Racing – Preece has made the main event every single time, collecting one top 10 in the event, a seventh in 2023 after leading 43 of 150 laps.

“I do feel like going into Bowman Gray, I feel like we’re going to have a strong car,” Preece said about his prospects for Sunday’s 200-lap main event. “I feel like everybody at RFK, Brad, Chris, myself, we’re going to have strong cars and be contenders for making the race but also running really well.”

“I feel pretty confident in that, so anytime we show up to a short track, I feel like there’s an opportunity there to win, and especially it being a quarter mile, it fits right into my wheelhouse,” Preece added. “I feel like our car is going to have good speed. There are a lot of things that I feel like we all took over from what we had last year to this year and made some adjustments. Everybody, that was a nice thing, everybody that showed up brought something to the table and I feel like that’s going to make the package that much better. I’m excited for Saturday to practice, qualify and have our heat races and hopefully lock ourselves in for the race on Sunday, and go fight for one.”

Preece will be piloting the No. 60 Fastenal Ford Mustang Dark Horse in his debut outing with RFK Racing at Bowman Gray Stadium. Practice, qualifying, and heat races to set the field for Sunday’s Cook Out Clash will take place on Saturday, February 1. The 23-driver main event will take place at 8:00 PM ET on FOX, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.