Story By: MIKE ARNING / STEWART-HAAS RACING – KANNAPOLIS, NC
RYAN PREECE
Michigan Advance
No. 41 United Rentals Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Event Overview
● Event: FireKeepers Casino 400 (Round 24 of 36)
● Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 18
● Location: Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn
● Layout: 2-mile oval
● Laps/Miles: 200 laps / 400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 45 laps / Stage 2: 75 laps / Final Stage: 80 laps
● TV/Radio: USA / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Notes of Interest
● Sandwiched between the tight confines of Richmond (Va.) Raceway last weekend and the wide-open speedfest two weekends hence at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway is Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, where Ryan Preece and his fellow NASCAR Cup Series competitors will get to stretch their racing legs this weekend before heading to “The World Center of Racing” for the penultimate race of the regular season.
● The driver of the No. 41 United Rentals Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing will be making his sixth career NASCAR Cup Series start on the 2-mile, D-shaped oval nestled in the Irish Hills of Michigan, where he owns a best Cup Series finish of seventh, earned in August 2019 behind the wheel of a JTG Daugherty Racing entry. In his first start there for Stewart-Haas in August 2023, Preece started 37th and finished 22nd.
● Outside of the NASCAR Cup Series at Michigan, Preece has one career NASCAR Xfinity Series start at the track, a 19th-place finish from the 24th starting position, driving for team owner Johnny Davis in June 2016. Preece had a pair of stout Xfinity Series outings at Michigan’s former sister track, the 2-mile, D-shaped oval at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, where he started eighth and finished ninth in March 2018 for Joe Gibbs Racing, and started seventh and finished eighth in March 2019 for JR Motorsports.
● Joining Preece at Michigan is United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI), the largest equipment rental company in the world. United Rentals has an integrated network of 1,449 rental locations in North America, 13 in Europe, 27 in Australia and 19 in New Zealand. In North America, the company operates in 49 states and every Canadian province. The company’s approximately 24,700 employees serve construction and industrial customers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners and others. The company offers approximately 4,700 classes of equipment for rent with a total original cost of $19.3 billion. United Rentals is a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the Barron’s 400 Index and the Russell 3000 Index®. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. Additional information about United Rentals is available at UnitedRentals.com.
Ryan Preece, Driver of the No. 41 United Rentals Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Michigan is a fast, 2-mile, D-shaped oval. Do you feel the sensation of speed there more than you do at other tracks?
“It’s all pretty relative. In my eyes, it doesn’t matter if you’re at Texas or Michigan. The speed is the speed, I would say, just the amount of throttle you carry through the corner. With how wide the corners are, you still don’t feel it, though. Hopefully we’re pretty good.”
Michigan marks a return to a high-speed, high-banked, intermediate track after running a variety of tracks through the summer. Can the knowledge learned early in the year at Las Vegas – or even at places that we’ve raced at more recently like Kansas and Charlotte – be applied to Michigan? Or were those races so long ago that it’s no longer applicable?
“Things are changing constantly. I think the fundamentals of it all are the same, but at the same time you’re trying to get the car as low to the ground as possible without hitting the right-rear limiter. At that point, it’s how much travel can you get.”
We’ve heard the adage, “Slow down to go fast,” and that seems to be used a lot at Michigan. What does that mean and how does it apply to Michigan?
“In my opinion, it’s just car capability, aerodynamics. We’re all dealing with kind of the same things. Nobody’s car is typically ever perfect, but if a car is capable of carrying that extra 3 or 4 miles an hour through the center of the corner – which sounds slow but it’s really not when you’re going 170 or 175 miles per hour through the center of the corner – to me, at a place like Michigan, it’s about having a car that’ll roll good speed through the center. That way you can make your straightaways as long as possible.”
Oftentimes, Michigan races have come down to fuel mileage. How does a driver try to save fuel inside the racecar when they’re still trying to outrun other racecars?
“That’s a great question. I think there are multiple ways to try and do it, whether it’s efficient or not I don’t know. But at a place like Michigan, where you’re on the throttle a lot, I think it’s more or less trying to carry 70 or 80 percent throttle instead of going full throttle, and really just depending on how much fuel you need to save. That’s why the guys on top of the box have to coach you and really help you understand how much fuel you need to save and what’s the most efficient way to do it without losing lap time.”
Has there been a fuel-mileage race where at the end of it you’ve said, “I did a really good job of saving fuel and got us the best finish possible?” Or have there been races where you’re left scratching your head wondering what you could’ve done differently?
“I thought at Pocono in 2021 we ended up seventh or so by saving fuel, doing some of those things, as well as Michigan in around the same period, I think I ended up seventh, as well. Fuel saving isn’t as much of an issue as long as you understand the entire picture and how much you need to be saving.”
When you’re trying to save fuel, is it easier to make a mistake because you’re sort of out of your rhythm, or do you just adapt into a new rhythm?
“You just adapt to a new rhythm. It’s something to where you find different ways to make speed, where if you’re giving up some of that straightaway speed, you’re upping your corner speed and making the same lap time. A little less brake here and there and a little less throttle down the straightaway, but at the same time carrying a little more through the corner at a smaller throttle percentage. Those little things matter.”
Do you put an asterisk next to a fuel-mileage win, or are you of the opinion that a win’s a win, no matter how you get it?
“A win’s a win no matter how you get it. Doesn’t matter if you run 25th all day long and make a strategy call to be on the front row for a green-white-checkered, at the end of the day you’ve still got to do your job, so I don’t care how you do it.”