Many things have changed in the Silly Season since we last looked at Ryan Preece’s 2025. With fewer and fewer openings as the weeks go by, where could Preece be in 2025?
The lowest tier of NASCAR’s national series could have the least options for Preece. Many have hoped a ride at ThorSport could be a spot for Preece.
While there are no known openings on the team, several openings in the Xfinity Series could poach talent from the top Ford program in the Truck Series.
Other options could lie with potential non-Ford openings. While no seats are known to be open yet, there are always openings in the series.
If Preece went down one level, he wouldn’t stay at home, home being a team owned by Gene Haas. The now Haas-Factory team is a one-Cup car and two-Xfinity car program.
Haas announced a commitment to developing talent this Saturday when they signed Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer for next season. With Cole Custer in the Cup car in 2025, Preece must find a new home in either series.
With Ford, the options are slim. RSS Racing looks promising and is a good choice for Preece. The team has also won with a former Stewart-Haas Racing driver before. RSS would have to have an opening first. But for a driver like Preece, they could make that opening.
Another Ford option is AM Racing. The team has had good runs since cutting ties with Hailee Deegan. Some have hoped they could upgrade to a full-time former Cup driver like free agents Harrison Burton and Preece.
Preece has more options outside of Ford, such as one or two seats at JR Motorsports. At JRM, not only is Mayer out, but rumors also point to Brandon Jones being out. Preece could fill that second Veteran role on the team if Jones were to depart.
A new spot is the open No. 18 at Joe Gibbs Racing, where Preece was once a TRD developmental driver. At JGR, Preece won both of his career Xfinity Series races, even one race in the No. 18. TRD has done the occasional reunion; however, would Preece play the role the team wants?
Preece’s chances of finding a Cup ride are slim but not zero, especially since there is a rumor that not two but potentially three Ford seats may be open for 2025.
The NASCAR Cup Series open-seat market consists of the No. 7 at Spire and the future third Front Row Motorsports car.
Preece could be a solid and consistent fit for the new FRR car, mainly if the team wanted a veteran to complement Gragson and Gilliland until Layne Riggs or an unknown driver is ready for the seat.
However, Justin Haley and the No. 7 have intertwined names in many rumor mills, leaving a possible spot at Rick Ware Racing. RWR and Preece would be a great fit. The team has made great strides with Haley, and Preece could hold down the fort until a new driver emerges.
However, Preece was mentioned in the name of a new ride.
Adam Stern of Sports Business Journal blew the whistle that Kroger could head to RFK Racing in 2025. This could open the team with a new entry. Stern even went as far as to mention that Preece is still a free agent when doing so.
Justin Haley could be a target in this scenario. However, Preece could hold down the ride again until RFK found their next driver.
While it hasn’t been the smoothest silly season for Preece, like most drivers, he will eventually find a ride. Where that will be is still unknown.
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Another race weekend in the books. While Ryan Blaney battled back from several pit road setbacks to win his second straight race at Phoenix, other drivers were much to be desired. It was a big win for Penske but for several others, they leave the first “real” race of the season scratching their head with a lot that they need to figure out. Here are the biggest losers of NASCAR’s Spring 2026 Phoenix race weekend.
I’m afraid that this is starting to be habitual. Another race weekend at RCR for Kyle Busch, another terrible result. Well, the finish wasn’t exactly awful. While 17th is hardly up to Kyle’s standards, it’s about as good as it gets anymore for the two-time champion who hasn’t won a race in nearly a hundred starts.
To start things off, there was a reason to be cautiously optimistic about the future of that RCR No. 8 Chevy. New crew chief. Personnel changes. A new Chevy body. He even scored the pole for the 68th running of the Daytona 500 last month. But, since then, it has been a sharp slope downward. He was mostly a non-factor in the first three races. And, today, it seemed like the No. 8 Chevy was out to lunch. They unloaded slow. They qualified in the back of the pack. And, before Stage 1 even ended, Kyle was running 34th with no apparent issues and went a lap down to leader Ryan Blaney. To add insult to injury, Kyle Bush had a tire go down on him three times today. More than any other driver. It appears to be back to the drawing board for team No. 8.
You could say that the Hendrick No. 48 team had a rough weekend in general. But I think it would be more accurate to say that the entire start to 2026 has been catastrophic. Heading into today’s race, even with Bowman starting the first three races of the season, the No. 48 team was 36th in points, last among all full-time drivers. Even Cody Ware was ahead of him. If that’s not bad, I don’t know what is.
To rub salt in the wound, their driver missed today at Phoenix due to showing symptoms of vertigo. So, Anthony Alfredo was into sub and…it went about as well as you’d expect. He went a lap down early and never recovered. He got caught up in the incident involving Joey Logano and DNF’d. Officially, they scored a 33rd finishing position. This is the worst start Bowman could ever imagine, considering that he’s in a contract year.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’ve lost my marbles. “Come on, dude! Penske just swept the weekend! How can they be losers?” Hear me out. Let’s start first with the two other Penske drivers, shall we? Joey Logano caused not one, but two multi-car pileups, one involving his Penske teammate, Austin Cindric. Cars were utterly destroyed. Before that, both Cindric and Logano were running solidly in the top 10.
So, it’s not for a lack of speed that they make our Biggest Losers list. The reason they’re listed here is that a lot of their problems today, if not all of them, were self-inflicted. Logano was driving sloppily and that took out Cindric. And even race winner Ryan Blaney almost lost this race on pit road numerous times. Rookie mistakes by the pit crew constantly had him charging from behind. Pit road penalties. He was like a yo-yo going back and forth throughout the field. What saved him in the end was that, on that last restart, Blaney took two tires and Christopher Bell took 4. If that had not happened, it is extremely possible that Blaney ultimately would have lost the race and it would have been because of their numerous mistakes in the pits.
They got lucky this week. They probably won’t get that lucky again. They need to clean up those nagging, senseless mistakes.
Ole, Danny boy. If Alex Bowman’s seat is the hottest in the series, Daniel Suarez has to be the second hottest in the garage. That No. 7 car has been a revolving door of drivers for the last several years and it looks like Suarez is shaping up to be Spire’s latest victim. It’s the same old story with the team: they show impressive speed in qualifying and even early on in the race. But rarely do they ever put a full race together. That criticism isn’t just for Suarez, it applies to the team across the board.
But Carson Hocevar is the team’s golden child. He’s not going anywhere. And the team seems pretty high on Michael McDowell at the moment. That leaves Suarez looking like the odd man out, a seat-warmer, if you will. He needs to perform. And, he’s done well to start, admittedly. But he qualified 5th for today’s race. He even earned a few stage points in the opening stage. Then, he faltered and left the race with an unceremonious whimper. Ultimately, after he was no longer a factor, he was caught up in a mid-race wreck. He finished 30th. That’s a tough pill to swallow for the Mexican-born driver. If he wants to keep his ride next year, he needs to show stark improvement in the coming weeks. I have a strong feeling that that ride is about to be a highly sought-after commodity once silly season rolls around.
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The first checkered flag of the 2026 rendition of the NASCAR West Coast Swing (as abbreviated as it is) has officially flown. It was an exciting race, full of close, tight-cornered racing, a plethora of tire issues littered throughout, and a couple of heartbreaking, hard hits. Surviving it all was Ryan Blaney, who captured the flag in the Straight Talk 500 at Phoenix Raceway. He survived pit road mishaps and passed a total of 49 cars to win the race today. It marks his 18th career victory, sweeping the weekend for Team Penske. So, for Blaney and Team Penske, the race was the highest of highs. Not everyone escaped unscathed, though. Here are the key takeaways from NASCAR’s spring date at Phoenix.
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Following a relatively clean first stage, Stage number 2 and beyond was littered with cautions. Most of these cautions were a result of tires going down after only about 20 laps or so of use. But the caution on Lao 216 was purely driver error. Joey Logano, who was running 7th at the time, made a move down on the apron approaching the finish line. Chaos ensued. Here’s what happened.
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