Ryan Preece secured his first NASCAR Cup Series victory at Daytona International Speedway to claim the final spot in the postseason championships.
The driver emerged clear of a massive multi-car crash on the final lap during an overtime finish to win the Coke Zero Sugar 400. The victory allowed Preece to snatch the 16th and final position in The Chase from New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen after entering the final race of the regular season trailing the cut line by 31 points.
Playoff Qualification and Overtime Drama
NASCAR recently ditched its controversial playoff format to return to a 10-race postseason system to decide its Cup Series champion, a change widely praised within stock car racing. While most of the 16 postseason spots were already locked in before Daytona, several drivers were still fighting for the remaining places.
Preece kept his championship hopes alive a week earlier with a top-10 finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Before the Daytona race, Preece acknowledged the difficult task ahead of him in the standings.
"So yeah, from a points perspective, I mean, drivers' (points), we have a chance - a Hail Mary chance. But the owners' (points), we have a real chance. So we're gonna race the s*** out of them," Preece said.
Knowing he needed a dramatic result, Preece pulled off his first career win in a Cup Series points race. He drove into Victory Lane at the same Florida track where he had previously suffered two of the scariest accidents of his professional career.
Crash History at Daytona Speedway
During the 2023 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona, Preece spent a night in hospital after a terrifying wreck in which his vehicle flipped nearly a dozen times before being hit by an oncoming car. History repeated itself during the 2025 Daytona 500 when Preece was involved in another terrifying airborne crash.
Preece walked away unharmed from the 2025 accident. "But when the car took off like that, it got real quiet. All I thought about was my daughter, so I'm lucky to walk away, but we're getting really close to somebody not being able to, so I'm very grateful," Preece said at the time.
Following his remarkable victory on Sunday to reach The Chase, Preece described the result as redemption for his previous experiences at the track where he twice cheated death.
Reflections on Safety and Victory Lane
Speaking to USA Sports after his victory, Preece revealed that he keeps a photograph taken the day after his 2023 crash showing his swollen eyes, an image he said very few people have seen.
"It's kind of been a thing where I've been showing the picture of my eyes that really nobody has ever seen, the day after. And I like to show people it because I like to see their reaction," Preece said. "But it's also a reflection and something that reminds me that Daytona almost took my life. Ended my racing career, it could've. We were about inches away from something possibly really bad happening."
"So to be standing here in Victory Lane and saying I won at Daytona, a place where every kid that races, they dream of winning here...so I'm just happy I had a rocket ship to go to the moon tonight," Preece added.
Earlier in 2026, before February's Daytona 500, Preece admitted he was kind of numb to re-watching replays of his crashes, which inevitably surface whenever NASCAR returns to Daytona.
"When I wreck like that, a lot of us race car drivers, and I'm sure we all, for the most part, have the same reaction of if we flip or have a bad wreck, it's just part of it," Preece said prior to the race in February. "If you're like me and you care about what you do and you want to win and all those things, you probably have the same reaction. When I see that replay, kind of like everyone else, I joke about it now at this point. I hope that Daytona is a little different for me. It'd be nice to be on the good side of things and not on my roof, or keeping all four tires on the ground, having a good finish or winning."
After securing the biggest win of his career, Preece celebrated in Victory Lane alongside his wife and two children.
Postseason Schedule and Darlington Raceway
Having finally landed on the good side of things at the World Center of Racing, Preece will take crucial momentum into the 10-race postseason. The Chase begins next Sunday at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.
