Back Again: Ryan Preece Rallies From The Rear For SK Modified Win At Stafford Speedway

STAFFORD – The view from the back has been a good one of late for Ryan Preece at Stafford Motor Speedway.

Ryan Preece celebrates his fourth SK Modified victory of the season at Stafford Motor Speedway Friday (Photo: Stephanie Kimball/Stafford Speedway)

On June 14 Preece rallied from the rear of the field to win in both the SK Modified feature and Whelen Modified Tour feature at Stafford.

Friday Preece kept his charging from the back ways alive.

Preece recovered from an early race penalty and rallied from the rear of the field over the final 18 laps to win the 40-lap NASCAR Whelen All-American Series SK Modified feature.

It was the fourth victory in seven events this year at Stafford for Preece, of Berlin.

Tom Bolles of Ellington was second and Rowan Pennink of Huntingdon Valley, Pa. third.

“I wouldn’t say I want to make this a habit,” Preece said of coming from the back each week. “I guess you can say it would make people buy tickets.”

Preece was running fourth on lap 12 when contact between himself and Pennink sent Pennink spinning in turn two. Preece was black flagged for over aggressive driving for the incident and sent to the rear of the 19-car field.

“It’s not my call to make. I wouldn’t want to be making that call. I’ll leave that up to [race director Tom Fox] and they do a good job. There’s not much I have to say about it. It is what it is. It could have been taken either way.”

On lap 22 the caution flew again with Preece’s car stuck on the frontstretch after contact.

But on lap 23, contact between third place running Sean Foster and fourth place Ted Christopher stacked up a host of cars in turn three. After the dust settled, Preece was back up to fifth for the ensuing restart.

By lap 30 Preece had threaded his way to second behind Bolles, who had led from the start of the event. On a lap 31 restart Preece used the outside lane to overtake Bolles for the lead out of turn two. He never trailed again.

“That Bolles car was pretty stout,” Preece said. “If I didn’t get a good restart, he was driving phenomenal, he had a ton of horsepower. Good job to him.”

Said Bolles: “It feels great. It’s been a struggle. We’ve been working our tails off. All the guys have been working so hard on this car.”