Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts on NASCAR penalizing and fining Ryan Preece for his incident with Ty Gibbs in the Cup Series race at Texas on Sunday.

Gibbs spun into the outside wall following a restart on lap 101 with Preece right on his bumper. After the wreck, Preece denied making any contact with Gibbs. He said, “Never touched him.”

The incident occurred after Preece went off on Ty Gibbs over the radio following an earlier encounter between the two. He said, “Alright, when I get to that 54, I’m done with him. [Expletive] idiot. … That car is so [expletive] fast. [Expletive] pisses me off. Stupid. I’m gonna vent for 15 seconds. I can’t stand when idiots like him have fast race cars that they can do stupid [expletive] and get away with it. End of rant.”

Here’s what Ryan Preece was so mad at Ty Gibbs about. Gibbs charged the entry to T1 on his inside and slid up towards Preece’s left front and cost him spots. Got on the mic immediately.

“What a fucking idiot that kid is! He is SO lucky his car is so fucking fast!!”

You can also… https://t.co/h0fMxhVbMZ pic.twitter.com/DDGnKaDKQg

— Steven Taranto (@STaranto92) May 4, 2026

NASCAR penalized Preece for violating Sections 4.3 and 4.4A of its rulebook, which states that “wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from competition as a result” is a punishable offense. He was fined $50,000 and penalized 25 points. 

NASCAR’s Managing Director of Racing Communications Mike Forde explained the decision on Hauler Talk, “He said what he said and then he did what he said. So in our view it was intentionally wrecking another vehicle. That’s where we landed. … He can appeal. That appeal process will play out. We’ll have that process at the R&D Center and we’ll see where that goes if there is an appeal.”

Junior reacted to the penalty in a video posted to X, “Having not really read a ton into the Preece penalty, I’m going to assume it was because he all but admitted to what he was going to do. Damn. Honestly, I honestly don’t agree with this one. I really don’t. I think if you’re not going to penalize Kyle, which I didn’t think that they would, I don’t think you can penalize Preece. If you watch the in-car of Preece, the 54 just drives across his nose. Even though we know what Preece said over the radio, and after the race, he could argue that in that moment the 54 cut him off or run over him. Whether that’s true or not doesn’t really matter. I’m just really really surprised by this decision.

“I honestly don’t agree with this one.” 🙅🏻‍♂️@DaleJr just saw the news that @RyanPreece_ was penalized $50,000 and 25 points for his actions in Texas. pic.twitter.com/fFttdYp73V

— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) May 5, 2026

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