By David Morgan, Associate Editor
LEBANON, Tenn. – Nearly a month after calling his shot and wrecking Ty Gibbs at Texas, Ryan Preece finally had his penalty appeal hearing this week, with the appeals panel electing to uphold the original penalty of $50,000 and 25 points.
In its statement following the penalty being upheld, the appeals panel laid out their thinking for upholding the penalty in what was not a unanimous decision among the three-member panel.
“Neither side clearly proved their point, but Mr. Preece’s comments showed that he chose to not cut his competitor any breaks.”
In his first comments following the penalty being upheld, Preece explained that the understanding for the way things played out certainly isn’t any clearer than it was heading into the appeal.
“I think the statement kind of is pretty…it doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not my…I’m extremely appreciative to be in this sport. I don’t know,” Preece said, choosing his words carefully in a media scrum Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway.
“There’s a lot of things that…I have a lot of thoughts, but obviously I’m looking forward to racing here this weekend and it’s just, it is what it is.”
Now clinging to the 16th and final transfer spot into the Chase, Preece pointed out that the penalty has forced his No. 60 team to go on offense for the second half of the regular season, which starts with Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville – something he’s not necessarily opposed to.
“Well, you can do the math. Technically, if you were to do the average of what it takes to make the playoffs, it’s probably around 26 points a race or maybe a little north of that. So, that’s a race. So, it’s like a DNF, I guess is the way you could look at it,” Preece said.
“But yeah, either way, honestly, I’m not too concerned. I like the fact that it puts us in this situation of playing offense more than being concerned about, hey, we need to keep it in 12th or hopefully above. So now we got to fight to go forward. That’s where our goals are.”
RFK Racing co-owner Brad Keselowski chimed in afterwards, noting that he wasn’t present for the appeal, but received enough of a play by play to get an understanding of what took place in that room.
“I didn’t sit in the room, so I can’t articulate everything that happened by any means. I did get some blow by blows. Tough situation. I feel for Ryan. I know he’s frustrated by the outcome and ultimately it is what it is and we’ve got to move forward,” said Keselowski.
He added that while he didn’t follow the line of thinking from the appeals panel, he could see why things ended up the way they did.
“I didn’t follow all the logic, but I do follow the logic of when you say something over the radio and then it happens, why NASCAR would be upset,” Keselowski noted.
Keselowski went on to point out how he tries to stay mindful of what he broadcasts out into the world from behind the wheel, less his comments be used against him like it was in Preece’s case.
“At all times,” Keselowski said with a grin. “I think they can read that to you in your rights, NASCAR Miranda rights. Yeah, I think the button on the steering wheel can be your friend, it can be your enemy. It can be a little bit of both.”
Preece added that given the penalty, he might just think twice before venting over the radio in the future.
“It wouldn’t have taken $50,000 and 25 point fine to adjust that,” Preece said. “All it took was one conversation from Mr. Jack Roush, and I can promise you I wouldn’t hit that button. So I got a lot of respect for him. Yeah, I mean, there was a lot of interviews on how drivers use their radios to vent.
“It’s kind of like going to a psychiatrist, right? You can’t sit…I want to say there was a driver that talked about this. You aren’t just going to sit in front of a mirror and talk to yourself. You need somebody to hear it. Right?
“But yeah, certainly won’t be hitting that button, I guess anymore.”
Asked for his thoughts on the whole ordeal, defending Nashville winner Ryan Blaney correlated the situation to something that might happen in the real world.
“I equate to that like… If you’re going to commit a crime, and you say you’re going to commit a crime, and you do commit the crime. If you’re in a courtroom, and they are like, well, you said you were going to do it and you did it. Hard to argue against that,” Blaney said.
“I don’t know. It gives NASCAR and them a way to, like, well, you said you were going to do it, you did it, there was malicious intent behind it. But I also think there are some things that are done in bad faith, that are, you know, never spoken on the radio, that I see. I’m like, maybe that should have been a penalty, but there’s no evidence to go about it.”
Blaney went on to add that he would like to see NASCAR take a more hands-off approach and let the drivers take care of things in their own way, but that could have its own pitfalls.
“Do I wish that it was a little bit more like hands off and kind of let drivers do what they want to do without having in the back of their mind that they going to get fined or penalized in the points? Yeah, probably. I would, but, at the end of the day, I don’t really think it’s good for it either to have guys out here jumping guys. You know?
“So, I don’t know. I wish it was; I would probably be of the way of just let us deal with it.”
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