Ryan Preece did not hold back during practice after officials instructed his team to make a safety-related adjustment to his car, with his frustrated radio message making it onto the TNT broadcast.

According to reporter Steven Taranto, NASCAR requested that the No. 60 team increase the height of Preece's headrest before the session continued. The adjustment did not sit well with Preece, who immediately voiced his displeasure over the team radio.

“I'm gonna argue with NASCAR about this adjustment that they want, and I don't. I mean, it's just rough as s***, this headrest is a pain in the a**. So it's knocking my [expletive] head everywhere," he said.

"Sorry, I'm not trying to swear; I'm just absolutely aggravated that I'm being told to change something that I don't want to change.”

In his tweet, Taranto explained that Preece prefers using a wider headrest. However, NASCAR was concerned there was too much space around the support, which could allow the driver's neck to pivot excessively in the event of an impact.

As a result, officials instructed the team to make the headrest slightly taller to better comply with the sanctioning body's safety standards.

The reason he specifically added that last clarification about swearing is that he does not want a repeat of what happened earlier in this season.

During a caution stage in the race at Texas Motor Speedway, Preece confirmed his intent to wreck Ty Gibbs after the two almost made contact just a few seconds earlier. 

Because his message was clearly heard on the radio, Preece was charged USD 50000 and was docked 25 points. Meanwhile, the late Kyle Busch got away with his incident in the same race. 

When NASCAR let Kyle Busch off the hook

At the Texas Motor Speedway, it appeared as if Kyle Busch finally had a fighting chance. However, the tussle with John Hunter Nemechek ended his promising run.

The two drivers hit the wall on the backstretch after exiting Turn 2. Later, they collided again in Turn 3, which resulted in Nemchek hitting the outer barrier and his car taking considerable damage. 

After the race, Busch went on to post about the incident on X, presenting SMT data in his defense. In a separate interaction with Jeff Gluck, Busch felt that his post had no connection with his not getting a penalty, but Preece had to bear the brunt of his incident with Gibbs in the same race. 

“No. My post didn’t have anything to do with that. My car was broken. There’s - go ask NASCAR for the pictures; it was plenty broken. His car wasn’t broken.” 

This was also backed up by NASCAR vice president of race communications, Mike Forde. He stated that the SMT data was inconclusive, and there was no audio evidence of Busch swearing at Nemechek or showing intent, which is why NASCAR had declined to fine the RCR driver. 

Read more at RFK Racing Digest 

Written by

Aaradhya Singh

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason