Ryan Preece never touched Ty Gibbs. That is not an opinion; that is what the telemetry said. Six and a half inches separated his bumper from Gibbs’ car on Lap 101 at Texas. Gibbs spun on his own. NASCAR fined Preece $50,000 anyway and docked him 25 points. Why? Because 30 minutes before the incident, Preece had said on his radio: “When I get to that 54, I’m done with him.”
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RFK Racing appealed. The appeals panel upheld the penalty in a split 2-1 vote. In their ruling, the panel admitted that neither side clearly proved their point. Read that again. They couldn’t prove he did it, and they punished him anyway. Then, the Chicagoland race happened. And it proved Preece’s point perfectly.
“There is no line right now, there is no line,” Preece said. “It just depends on who does it and who’s going to get the penalty.”
At Chicagoland, Shane van Gisbergen wrecked Austin Hill on Lap 48. Hill sideswiped SVG’s car under caution on the way to the garage, deliberate, visible, on camera. NASCAR looked at it. Issued nothing. The reason? Neither driver had said anything on the radio first.
So that is where we are. Say something on the radio, lose $50,000. Actually hit someone, say nothing, walk free. Ryan Preece is not making this up. The comparison writes itself, and he is using it.
Denny Hamlin made the same argument on his podcast. He stated that NASCAR over-polices team radios and under-polices the actual racetrack. Hamlin believes the officials should let the drivers handle it themselves. If someone does something wrong, the field will sort it out. That is how it used to work. He called it “self policing.’
“I don’t think Shane should have been penalized,” Ryan Preece said. “I’m a believer in what Denny said about self-policing. I just don’t think I should have gotten penalized.”
Before Texas, Preece had 63 points of breathing room above the playoff cutline. After the deduction, that dropped to 38. Because Texas was Race 11 of the season, Preece still had about 15 regular-season races left to rebuild his cushion. He now has to fight for every single point to earn that safety net back.
However, Preece is not sitting around sulking about it. He is finding ways to keep things light. Recently, he put up four large billboards on I-75 near EchoPark Speedway. They had nothing to do with NASCAR or his penalty. Instead, they were part of a hilarious, ongoing prank war with his RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher.
He also dropped some merchandise, taking a subtle swipe at the whole penalty incident. Preece started selling a new T-shirt that reads, “Don’t hit the Button,” promoting it online with the caption, “Radio Check.” Fans loved the move. It proved exactly how many people share his frustration with NASCAR’s strict policing of driver radios.
“Sitting here putting out a protest isn’t going to get me my points back,” Preece said. “Running well on Sunday does.”
He knows the controversy is just noise. The points only come from one place. And with the playoff bubble tightening, Ryan Preece can not afford to spend another weekend talking about what NASCAR got wrong. He has to go out and make it irrelevant.