The Watkins Glen race is here, but RFK Racing is still dealing with consequences from Texas. Ryan Preece’s 25-point and $50,000 penalty is something that the team is not okay with.

Speaking on Saturday at Watkins Glen, Ryan Preece reacted to the sum mentioned in the penalty and said,  “I’m feeling pretty good about the process and not having to deal with that. But that is a substantial amount of money.”

The #60 RFK Racing driver reacted to his penalty and said, “Honestly, I’m a bit surprised. Thankful that NASCAR has an appeal process, so I feel like I can be heard and let that process play out.”

The team has confirmed that it will appeal to the National Motorsports Appeal Panel.

On how he found out about the penalty, Preece said, “I was on my mower, mowing my lawn at about 4:30 pm in an area that does not have great signal. I just saw that I had a missed call, so when I made the call back, I found out that I had a penalty."

Preece was hit with the penalty from NASCAR based on his incident with Ty Gibbs on Lap 101 of the race in Texas, where Preece bumped the JGR driver, who spun into the wall on the outside, ending up with too much damage to complete the race. 

The penalty was levied on Preece because of a radio message earlier in the race that signaled 'intent' when he said, “I can’t stand when idiots like him have fast race cars, and they can do stupid s*** and get away with it. When I get to that #54, I’m done with him.”

Preece thanks RFK support on appeal 

The hefty penalty will also see a significant 25-point deduction, something that could affect Preece’s run into the Chase. With his team backing him to the hilt, Preece expressed gratitude toward the team and his fellow driver. 

Preece said, “I’m thankful for RFK, for Chip(Bowers) and everyone there for their support, I’m thankful for having Chris(Buescher) and Brad(Keselowski) as teammates and for them being the great teammates that they are.”

Preece is happy that there is a process to go through and that he feels that his side can be heard. 

When asked if he will be more hesitant over the radio moving forward, he said,  “At the beginning of the season, we were encouraged to be ourselves. I’m not going to change being myself, but what I can say is that I’m excited for the appeals process, and I look forward to going through that.”

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason