Ryan Preece weighed in on the controversial on-track battle between Carson Hocevar and Ryan Blaney in Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Racing for second with 43 laps remaining, Hocevar’s No. 77 got into the back of Blaney’s No. 12, sending the latter crashing into the wall and out of the race. The incident led to a post-race fight between the two drivers, with punches thrown on both sides.
Preece drew up the on-track skirmish as a typical Bristol racing incident but with one key difference.
Which driver it involved.
Preece on Hocevar/Blaney incident: ‘How many times has Carson been in an incident …”
Preece was a special guest on the “Door Bumper Clear” podcast to reflect on the Bristol chaos.
The RFK Racing driver believed Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ty Gibbs were the two cars to beat in Saturday’s race. As a driver, Preece said you have a “racer sense” in the late laps of knowing who the top contenders are.
“There’s a lot going on in your head in those moments and when I watch the three laps before, you can make the decision as a driver to say, ‘OK, he just passed me clean. I’m probably not gonna hold him off in all reality.’ The 12 and the 54 I thought were the fastest cars that night,” he said.
When analyzing the on-track incident, the driver of the No. 60 acknowledged both sides. Preece believes Blaney crowded Hocevar on the inside of the racetrack but added that there are two sides to the story.
“Carson crossed him and, yeah, Ryan started coming down but there’s like a both sides thing,” Preece said.
Preece pinned the blame on both drivers, believing that Hocevar could have given Blaney some courtesy, while Blaney could not have crowded Hocevar on the bottom lane. While Preece saw it as a simple racing incident, the difference was who it involved.
“Carson could have lifted, Ryan could have not come down — to me, it is what it is. That’s racing. That’s frustrating. The difference is how many times has Carson been in an incident this year?”
In the Chase opener at Darlington, Hocevar found himself at the center of controversy after trading paint with Brad Keselowski. Two races prior, Hocevar was again in the spotlight for the wrong reasons following an incident with Connor Zilisch.
Preece on the next stretch of Chase races: ‘About to see a show’
Minutes after Saturday’s checkered flag flew, Preece stood on pit road and looked up at the jumbotron to catch the highlights of the Hocevar/Blaney post-race fight, getting a chuckle out of what he saw.
When asked about the upcoming three Chase races, which are all 1.5-mile racetracks (Kansas, Las Vegas, Charlotte), Preece expects there to be chaos.
“I think we’re about to see a show,” he said.
Ryan Preece made the Chase for the first time this season after capturing his first career Cup win in the regular-season finale at Daytona. After three Chase races, Preece ranks 14th in the standings.
Ryan Preece Points to One Key Difference in Carson Hocevar, Ryan Blaney Incident