Ryan Preece said something on his NASCAR radio at Texas Motor Speedway on May 3 that he probably wishes he could take back. It's all because of what it cost him after. Preece was fed up with Ty Gibbs racing him aggressively in three-wide traffic.
On Lap 101, he radioed his team: "All right, when I get to that 54, I'm done with him." Thirty minutes later, Gibbs' No. 54 Toyota hit the SAFER barrier after the two tangled in Turn 3. Two days later, NASCAR gave Preece a 25-point deduction and a $50,000 fine. The penalty was upheld on appeal. For media insider Jeff Gluck , though, what came next made it worse.
"I think NASCAR should go back, do the right thing, and give Preece his points back," Gluck said.
The contact itself was not the issue. The National Motorsports Appeals Panel admitted that neither NASCAR nor RFK Racing could definitively prove intent from telemetry data alone. What sealed it was the radio. NASCAR VP Mike Forde was direct :
"He said what he said, and then he did what he said."
One radio call turned a debatable on-track moment into a clear behavioral violation. The 25-point penalty dropped Preece down the standings and put him right on the playoff bubble.
In the same race at Texas, Kyle Busch made contact with John Hunter Nemechek. Many in the garage considered it visually worse than Preece and Gibbs. But there was no penalty. Busch said nothing on his radio. NASCAR called it a racing incident. That is when the double standard became impossible to ignore.
Now, quite recently, at Chicagoland, Shane van Gisbergen wrecked Austin Hill. NASCAR Managing Director Brad Moran admitted on SiriusXM that it "probably looked very similar" to Preece's incident. No penalty: SVG had no radio evidence of intent.
Hill then retaliated under caution, dooring SVG's car. His team warned him not to discuss it on air. NASCAR's Elton Sawyer called it "just an emotion thing." No penalty there either. The rule, as it stands, does not penalize the act. It penalizes the admission.
Gluck is not arguing that SVG or Hill should have been penalized. He agrees NASCAR was right to let drivers police themselves. His problem is the inconsistency. Ryan Preece got punished for being transparent, while everyone else walked free for staying quiet. NASCAR is now planning meetings with SVG, Hill, Hocevar, and Zane Smith at Atlanta. Mike Ford confirmed there will be no benefit of the doubt going forward for any of them.
That only strengthens Gluck's argument. If two incidents at Chicagoland clarified what the actual policy is, and under that same policy, Ryan Preece should not have lost those points, then NASCAR owes him a correction.
"Out of everyone involved in this situation, Ryan Preece got wronged," Gluck said.
RCR has its own reason to be frustrated. Austin Dillon was stripped of his playoff eligibility for intentionally wrecking two drivers at Richmond. SVG, their current driver, clearly wrecked Hill and got no penalty.
Now, Hill is being warned that any further retaliation will cost him. RCR followed the rules. The rules, it seems, did not follow back.
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