A Look Back At All The Stories, Live Updates And Galleries From Modified Speedweek In Florida

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1. Doug says

   February 18, 2018 at 8:46 am

   There’s a lot of great modified drivers in the Northeast. Coby, Rocco, Hirschman, Emerling, McKennedy, Nocella, Pennink………..the list goes on. So what makes Preece so special.
   My view he simply has every component necessary to be successful on the national stage. Sure he can drive but a lot of guys can drive. But he’s got that great personality. He never fails to deliver an upbeat message in his interactions with the media even after tough races. He perseveres. A very tough week he had in Fla. No one wants to say it but the stuck throttle was a potential killer. Preece shook that off and all the other problems, put his head down and soldiered through.
   “To be honest with you, as a racer, I don’t want to know what caused me not to get hurt or anything like that,” Preece said. “All I want to think about is my next race, so that’s the way I’m going to look at it. It is what it is. There’s nothing I can do, and nothing anybody else can do. There’s stuff I can do to prevent it in the future, which I’ve already made those changes and I’ll make damn sure it won’t happen again.
   “As far as looking back and it making me think twice about sending it off into Turn 1 anywhere, that ain’t going to change anything I do.”
   He’s a tireless worker and knowledgeable. A lot of young drivers want to let the experts set the cars up while they sharpen their skills with simulators and video games. Not Preece. He literally will do anything it takes to get himself to a race to compete.
   “I’m racing for a job. I’m racing for my life dream, so that’s what I’m going to continue on doing. I’m extremely excited to have Rheem and Ruud and Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing put me in that No. 18 and give a short-tracker who’s been around pulling motors, doing whatever we’ve got to do to get on the race track, just like everybody else who’s at a race track on a Friday night, Saturday night, whatever night it is.
   “I feel like I’m living the dream and I’m going to continue doing that and work my butt off to keep doing that.”
   And lastly he’s tough. Elliot Sadler has national name recognition in NASCAR while Preece is a virtual unknown outside of the Northeast. Yet when Preece got into a rhubarb with Sadler last year in an Xfinity race Preece didn’t give an inch and still hasn’t.
   “Three weeks ago — nearly two months removed from the incident — Sadler indicated that the events of Homestead still irked him, telling reporters on the NASCAR preseason media tour, “He better not get anywhere near me.” Monday night, Preece reiterated his stance from last November, adding that neither he nor Sadler had reached out to the other to clear the air.”
   Quotes taken from Zach Albert, Hometracks, 2/14/2018.