Ryan Preece felt a wave of relief after winning…

Driving down to the World Series of Asphalt at New Smyrna Speedway immediately after winning the Cookout Clash last week, Ryan Preece felt lighter.

It wasn’t a points-paying race but it was a victory at the highest level against his peers in the NASCAR Cup Series and it very much felt like a degree of validation for everything that came before.

“I don’t know how to explain it other than I’m pretty confident,” Preece said. “I’m not cocky. I’m just confident in knowing that if you put me in certain situations, that I can get the job done.

“What I can say is when I was driving at four or five in the morning on the way down on I-95 to New Smyrna that I felt lighter. I don’t know why other than of what I can simply say is that I was carrying weight on my back or shoulders that I didn’t realize I was, and who I am as a person – everything about racing is who I am. I dictate my entire life around it.

“I’ve dedicated my entire life around it. My family has taken a backseat to my career, so going out and doing that, yeah, I am super blessed and really thankful to have been able to experience winning at the Cup Series level but now I want to do it more.”

Remember, this is the same driver that gave up an entire season driving for low budged JD Motorsports in 2016 so that he could make just three or four starts at Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series for a chance to prove he could win.

He did, by the way.

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard enough and, for me, I feel like I’m an example of that.”

Preece had to take turns at the Cup Series level in equipment not capable of winning at JTG Daugherty or a Stewart-Haas Racing program that was past its prime. He suffered some of the wildest crashes at Daytona that could have ended his career had it gone a slightly different way.

That first crash in 2023 encouraged him to buy a motorhome, because he wanted to spend more time with his family at the track in a place that felt like home. Because he’s been so consumed with racing, it’s made him absent at home at times, and it’s something he’s working on.

“Every day is learning how to be a better father and how to balance what I need to do as a race car driver, what I need to be as a father and then what I need to be as a husband,” Preece said. “That’s a really difficult balance because you want to provide and in order to provide I have to succeed, and in order to succeed I have to spend a lot of time doing what I do, so there’s not really a set answer on it other than I’m trying to be the best version of me every single day and make sure I’m able to watch my kids grow up and not look back 10-12 years from now saying, ‘Where did the time go?’”

Preece says he ‘wasn’t always the best person to live with’ when he was struggling to establish himself in NASCAR because he was so driven to be a Cup Series winner but that’s also what made last week so special.

“My wife was on Facetime. She was home with the kids. They were sleeping,” Preece said. “So the first thing I did when I got home is I put the trophy inside our house so that my daughter could see it in the morning and understand what her dad just did.

“That was special to me, so I think Heather, she knew. She knew how hard I’ve worked and all the things because she was the one who said it to me and made me realize that that entire week, going to the Clash, that’s one of my favorite races of the year because it’s a quarter-mile.

“It’s like SVG going to a road course. I’ve raced on quarter miles all my life and I’ve been really good at them, and when the format changed because of the weather and how we had to qualify I felt defeated before I even went there, so to go and win I felt like I conquered the world.”

Now, comes the next step, which is to do it again in a points-paying race, begging the question if that will also feel like his first win. He says every Cup Series win is something he wouldn’t take for granted and treat like he did on Wednesday.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve worked too hard to get here for it not to,” Preece said. “There’s been different wins in my career on different stages that have meant a lot to me and winning that first points series race is going to be a big deal. I hope my kids are there. I hope my family is there when it happens, but that’s the goal for 2026 is win.”