By AMANDA VINCENT
The end of the playoff format and the reintroduction of the Chase for 2026 was thought to end the “win and you’re in” mantra in the NASCAR Cup Series. That wasn’t the case for Ryan Preece and his night of firsts at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Preece was on the outside looking in when it came to a Chase spot ahead of Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400, the final race of the regular season. But his first-career win in his 249th-career start came with enough points to get him into his first Cup Series postseason.
“Unreal. The Northeast is gonna burn it down tonight, because when we won the Clash, all I heard was, ‘That was a non-points race.’ Well, now we’ve won a points race, and now we’re in the playoffs,” Preece said. “We came with our back against the wall, and we fought. That was a heavyweight fight, and we were never out. Thank you to OIKOS, Kroger, Fastenal, Mr. Jack Roush, everybody at RFK, Brad Keselowski, Tad Geschickter, all our friends and family, Ford for the awesome race car, Doug Yates for the awesome motor. I’m just super, super proud. I’m proud to be a Northeast guy.”
Daniel Suarez finished second, Tyler Reddick third, Michael McDowell fourth and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fifth.
Thirteen drivers — Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Reddick, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Kyle Larson Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Carson Hocevar, William Byron and Suarez — locked up Chase berths ahead of the Daytona racing, leaving three spots up for grabs. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. earned enough points in stage one to grab a spot, and Austin Cindric claimed a Chase berth with a sixth-place race finish.
“Obviously, we had a strong Maytag/Menards Ford Mustang,” Cindric said. “We were able to get to the front when we needed to, at times. I hate we weren’t able to capitalize and lead as many laps as we did in stage two to give ourselves a larger buffer for the final stage, but the guys did a great job of keeping me informed with what I needed to do to keep ourselves out front and get back to the front. Everything we needed to do we checked the boxes tonight.”
Saturday’s race, scheduled for 160 laps, went into overtime because of a lap-155 caution for Carson Hocevar and Erik Jones. The race restarted with Zane Smith as the leader but ended under caution for a multi-car crash that began with Smith turning from a block gone wrong.
Preece took the lead on the backstretch as some of the competition crashed.
Austin Hill led a race-high 27 laps, all in the first 50 laps of the race. Drivers who led late included Briscoe, Brad Keselowski, Cody Ware, Byron, Reddick, Smith and Preece.
Shane van Gisbergen won the 35-lap opening stage that ended under caution because of a Buescher spin on the last lap of the stage. Gibbs and Logano were second and third at stage-end.
Hill led a significant portion of the first stage after taking the lead on lap 11. He started the race third while Ross Chastain started on the pole.
Blaney won the 60-lap second stage on lap 95 with Preece in second. Blaney took the lead from Elliott on the backstretch of the final lap of the stage.
Blaney’s Team Penske teammate Logano was up front to restart for stage two after getting off pit road first after stage one.
Elliott led a significant portion of stage two. Other lap leaders in the stage included Hill, Briscoe, Chastain, Smith and Preece. Another Penske driver, Cindric, also led laps late in stage two.
Todd Gilliland and Briscoe were up front for the lap-102 restart after the pit stops that followed stage two.
Other top-10 race finishers included Austin Dillon in seventh, Alex Bowman eighth, Josh Berry ninth and Cole Custer 10th.
