Contact Us
Featured  ·  NASCAR Cup Series

NASCAR Appeals Panel Upholds Penalty To Ryan Preece Then Issues Contradictory Statement

May 28, 2026  ·
  John Trent

The National Motorsports Appeals Panel that consisted of Tom DeLoach, Dixon Johnston, and Lake Speed chose to uphold the penalty to Ryan Preece issued to him on May 5th after an incident between him and Ty Gibbs at Texas Motor Speedway.

During the race Preece expressed frustration with Ty Gibbs saying over the radio, ““What a [expletive] idiot that kid is! He is so lucky his car is so [expletive] fast!”

After a caution flew, Preece then promised, “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.”

Following a restart on lap 101, Gibbs spun hard into the wall seemingly off the nose of Ryan Preece. As the two were coming through turns 3 and 4, Gibbs spun with Preece right on his bumper and slammed hard into the outside wall while the two were racing each other back around the 20th position.

After Gibbs wrecked, Preece said over the radio, “Never touched him.” He also said that, “He can come on over and see me later.” 

Following the race, Preece told FrontStretch, “I’ll be honest with you. I hate that he wrecked, but decisions you make on the race track there are repercussions. And I try to race everybody with an amount of respect that I like in return and when you don’t do that, I’m not going to cut you a break. And that’s what happened.”

He reiterated his belief that he never touched Gibbs in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, “Basically, I’ll just kinda put it the way I said in the post-race interview yesterday, which is: There’s moments that there are people that you can race with respect around and cut breaks to. I can think of multiple times yesterday that instead of putting another driver in a pretty tough spot you make the decision not to do that. I just grew up racing against people that I learned that lesson a long long time ago when I was a lot younger. Sometimes I question if those same lessons are learned by the time you get to Cup.

“So for me, it was more along the lines, he almost or pretty much was very close clear getting into 3 and I could lift, but I didn’t. I was right there and I felt like he came down and I was not going to cut him a break because in the past him and I have had problems,” he continued. “I’ve got a little bit of a short fuse with him and I and how we’re racing. And that was just one of those situations that could I cut him a break? Probably could’ve, but I didn’t.”

Preece then reiterated that he didn’t think he made contact with Gibbs, “And ultimately I didn’t feel like I hit him. I felt like I stayed right on him and he got loose and from there on unfortunately he wrecked. But I think that’s just the way it is. The decisions you make on the race track, people are going to make their decisions back. And that’s just the way racing is. That’s no different than what is from what you see at your local race tracks of people there or regionally or whatever it is. It’s been around as long as time. It’s kind of an unwritten code or unspoken thing. That’s kind of the way it went down.”

NASCAR penalized him for violating Sections 4.3 and 4.4.A 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.  Preece was penalized 25 points and fined $50,000. The penalty currently has him sitting in 16th position, the final cutoff spot for the Chase. He would otherwise be tied for 13th with Bubba Wallace.

On Hauler Talk, NASCAR’s Managing Director of Racing Communications Mike Forde explained that the penalty was issued based on Preece’s in-car communications about Gibbs , “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.”

Now, NASCAR Communications shared in a post to social media that the Appeals Panel decided that “[Ryan Preece] violated the Rule(s) set forth in the Penalty Notice” and “the Panel affirms and upholds the original Penalty assessed by NASCAR.”

However, in the panel’s explanation of its ruling it stated, “Although not a unanimous decision, NASCAR and RFK Racing presented competing interpretations of common data. Neither side clearly proved their point, but Mr. Preece’s comments showed that he chose to not cut his competitor any breaks.”

Fox Sports’ NASCAR Insider Bob Pockrass previously detailed that the burden of proof is on NASCAR during the initial appeal. That burden of proof has to meet the standard of “more likely than not.” However, the explanation given by the panel clearly indicates that it was seemingly not met, but somehow still ruled that Preece wrecked Gibbs.

RFK Racing expressed extreme disappointment in the ruling. The team issued the following statement: “RFK Racing is extremely disappointed in today’s ruling by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel. We stand by Ryan Preece and believe our argument was fair, sound, and without question. We appreciate the forum provided by NASCAR to both provide detailed evidence and defend our stance through thoughtful data and digital evidence. Let’s get back to racing – see you in Nashville!”

RFK Racing does have the option to appeal again to a Final Appeals Officer. According to Pockrass the burden of proof switches to the team appealing NASCAR’s decision.

NEXT: Richard Childress Racing Announces Suspension Of The No. 8 Following Kyle Busch’s Death

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Author: John Trent