Bruised but fit, Ryan Preece returns with clear bill of health after Daytona crash

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Ryan Preece said he’d had a recent conversation with mixed martial arts fighter Miesha Tate, apparently wanting to compare notes on the effects of facial bruising and how to handle it after his dramatic flip at Daytona International Speedway. When he briefly removed his sunglasses during a media availability Saturday outside his team’s hauler, the 32-year-old driver had the look of a pugilist who had gone multiple rounds in a heavyweight bout.

Bloodshot, black and blue but otherwise fit, Preece was back in the NASCAR Cup Series garage at Darlington Raceway on Saturday morning, one week after a Daytona barrel roll that sent the Stewart-Haas Racing driver to a local hospital for evaluation. He announced Friday morning that he was cleared to return to competition, and he’s set to return to the cockpit of SHR’s No. 41 Ford in Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN, SiriusXM, NBC Sports App) at the historic Darlington track.

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“They aren’t bad,” Preece said when asked about his eyes, darkened by the rush of blood from the force of the flip. But in showing the aftermath, he said he wanted to address any concerns up front, saying that neither his vision nor overall feeling had been compromised.

“I wanted to clear that up as quick as possible, because I felt fine,” Preece said. “I didn’t want to feel like there was an optics issue of me showing up here to race this weekend and doing my job and fulfilling my commitment as a race car driver to my team, but as well as my guys in here because that means a lot to me.”

Preece was collected in a late-race crash in the Coke Zero Sugar 400, the regular-season finale at Daytona. His No. 41 Mustang veered out of line on the backstretch and slid toward the infield grass, flipping rapidly after it went airborne.

Preece said he was anxious to leave the hospital just as the clock neared midnight Saturday, not long after the checkered flag of the Daytona race, but stayed until early the next morning as a precaution. He said that the bruising and appearance of his eyes was common among sprint-car drivers, whose cars flip with more regularity, but that he reported no soreness in the days after the wreck.

“My wife even joked with me on Monday morning and said, ‘You got out of bed quicker than me,’ ” Preece said. “So, me as a person, my father raised me to be the way I am, how tough I am and how I want to be as a person, so it’s OK to be that way.”

Preece also said that he reported no signs of a concussion, which he said would have kept him from pressing forward to resume his racing schedule if he posed a danger to himself or others. With a clean bill of health, sitting out Sunday’s race, he said, was not a consideration.

“As a racer, why?” Preece said. “You go talk to a guy that’s racing a 410 (sprint car) or a modified, we love to race, and I feel completely fine. So why stop? You know what I mean? I get what you’re saying. It’s OK to not race, but it’s OK to race, and I think that’s what really needs to be said here.”

Preece’s No. 41 car was taken to the NASCAR Research & Development Center for further evaluation, and NASCAR officials indicated that initial findings showed that the driver’s compartment remained intact with limited intrusion. The investigation continues, officials said, with further details expected to be shared in the coming weeks.

“As drivers, we want to be very involved in the process,” said Preece, who added that he has not seen the car since emerging from it last weekend. “Moving forward, I’d like to go see the car. I’d like to explain to them what I went through and then as well as figuring out a way to help keep the car on the ground. I mean, we’ve come so far from the early ’90s, right, with the roof flaps and all that stuff.”

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Aric Almirola, one of Preece’s fellow drivers at Stewart-Haas, was among those saying he was buoyed by the early details.

“Obviously, it being one of my teammates, we want to make sure that everything that we’re doing as an organization inside the race car with the way we mount our seats and steering brackets and all the things internally inside the car held up and they did,” Almirola said. “They held up really well. So really encouraged about that, the way that cocoon around him in the driver’s compartment stayed intact and didn’t get really too beat up. So really, really happy with the way everybody — obviously in NASCAR, but particularly at Stewart-Haas Racing — all the attention to detail they put in to making sure that they build the race car as safe as they can, they did an awesome job.”

Preece is more than two-thirds of the way through his first Cup Series season with Stewart-Haas Racing, and his fourth full-time campaign overall. He did not qualify for the playoffs, which open this weekend at Darlington, but claimed his first Cup Series pole position earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway.

Preece may be relatively new to SHR’s four-driver Cup Series roster, but he is acclaimed as a veteran from the highly competitive Modified Tour circuit. The Cup Series has its own fierce brand of competition, but he said that the community has also provided support in the wake of his Daytona crash.

“We race against each other, and there’s times where we definitely want to wring each other’s heads off, but we all care,” he said. “We don’t want to see anybody get hurt.”