Ryan Preece is embracing his New England roots while seeking the last spot in NASCAR’s Chase

Ryan Preece during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race event at Sonoma Raceway, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in Sonoma, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File) LOUDON, N.H. (AP) — Amid the attention and pressure of racing for NASCAR Cup Series title stakes this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Ryan Preece is hanging loose with his hometown crowd.The Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing driver is on the bubble for making the field of 16 drivers who will compete in the Chase, the 10-race championship run that closes the season. With two races remaining in the regular season, Preece is ranked 50 points behind Shane van Gisbergen for the final spot in the Chase.“We need a home run,” Preece said. “That’s the plan.”But he scoffs at the idea of walling off the outside world to focus solely on his No. 60 Ford. Preece instead has embraced the frenzy of racing around his roots as a rallying point for his last-ditch charge at the Chase.The Berlin, Connecticut, native has spent the week in New England competing with his family-owned team at minor league races across the region (including Saturday’s Modified Series race at New Hampshire). Ryan Preece Motorsports has a crew full of locals with nicknames like “John the Plumber” who have been helping the driver since he was a teenager.“We have nicknames for each and every one of them,” said Preece, 35. “It’s an opportunity to race with guys that I’ve known forever. They just enjoy racing and having some fun. I live for getting behind the wheel of a race car, not sitting in a room analyzing what people are going to do. Because if you race enough, you can predict what people are going to do. So I think it’s important to race more. I don’t think it’s a distraction.” 2 MIN READ 1 MIN READ 1 MIN READ New Hampshire’s flat 1.058-mile oval is a critical opportunity for Preece, who finished 17th at Richmond Raceway last week and fell 21 points further behind 16th in the Chase standings. Ford drivers have been dominant recently at New Hampshire, leading 275 of 301 laps last year while taking three of the top four spots.Preece has 40 NASCAR starts at the track known as “The Magic Mile” vs. two NASCAR races at New Hampshire for van Gisbergen, who has only a few seasons of oval experience after a career of racing on road and street courses before entering NASCAR. “When I go to New Hampshire and the feel that I look for, that there are certain things I can do pretty well, where Shane is still trying to figure out,” Preece said. “There are things that Shane does phenomenally on road courses. We all have tendencies that we’re better at than others, but going into New Hampshire, I feel like being from New England, it’s my people. It’s a place that I’ve been racing at since I was 16 years old.”His career highlight at New Hampshire was a Modified Series victory on a last-lap pass in 2021.“I’ve definitely had a lot of memories, and it would be nice to add one with a win in the Cup Series here,” Preece said. “I’ve loved everything about this place.”Lobster talesAfter winning last September at New Hampshire, Ryan Blaney will receive his trophy on Sunday – a 20-pound lobster mounted on a plaque.Teammate Joey Logano said he started the tradition for the “Loudon the Lobster” trophy in 2009 when he scored the first of his 39 Cup victories.“They were like: ‘What do you want to do with the lobster? We’ll just ship it to you,’” Logano said. “I was like: ‘Alive? Why don’t you just put it on a plaque?’ I’ve got a couple on the wall. It’s a good icebreaker when people come to your house and see a lobster on the wall.” Christopher Bell, who has won two of the past four Cup races at New Hampshire, said his team is feeling more refreshed this season, which included a second off week in midsummer. Easter weekend was the only break in the 2025 schedule.“The grind was a lot harder last year with (27) races in a row,” Bell said. “That was brutal. The schedule being broken up a lot more this year was great.”Blaney (+425) is the favorite for Sunday’s race, followed by Logano (+475) and Bell (+475). … Hendrick Motorsports, the winningest team in NASCAR history, made its most recent trip to victory lane at New Hampshire with Kasey Kahne in July 2012. Since then, the team has 118 victories on 28 tracks.