Ryan Preece won his first career NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona in his 249th start — and in doing so, knocked Shane van Gisbergen out of the 2026 Chase for the Championship despite van Gisbergen entering the night with a 31-point cushion over him. Preece claimed the Chase’s 16th and final berth by just 17 points, in a regular-season finale that swung entirely on the race’s final, chaotic lap.
How the Race Actually Ended
Van Gisbergen won the opening stage of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 and looked well positioned to lock up his Chase spot after Chris Buescher crashed in the tri-oval following an errant push from Kyle Larson. But NASCAR’s superspeedway racing is famously unpredictable in exactly this way: van Gisbergen could only watch from further back in the field as a multi-car crash unfolded directly in front of him on the final lap, and Preece came through to steal both the win and the final Chase bid. It was a genuinely wild night for Preece specifically — at one point he spun through the grass in Turn 1 before fighting back to actually win the race outright.
Why 249 Starts Without a Win Matters Here
Preece had gone 248 career Cup Series starts without a victory before Daytona — a long enough drought that a maiden win at any point would be a real story, but doing it in the exact race that determines Chase eligibility, and doing it by literally taking the spot from the driver who’d led him by 31 points that same night, is a different level of dramatic timing. Daniel Suarez and Tyler Reddick finished just behind him, meaning Preece beat a genuinely competitive field, not a diminished one, for his first career trophy.
Who Is Ryan Preece
Preece, 35, is from Berlin, Connecticut, and built his early career in NASCAR’s Whelen Modified Tour, becoming the series’ youngest champion in history in 2013 at just shy of 23. He debuted in Cup racing in 2018-19, spent two seasons with Stewart-Haas Racing (2023-24) picking up seven combined top-10 finishes, and joined RFK Racing’s No. 60 Ford for the 2025 season. Notably, Daytona wasn’t technically his first Cup Series-level win of 2026 — he’d won the Cook Out Clash exhibition race at Bowman Gray Stadium back in February, a non-points preseason event that doesn’t count in the record book the way a points race does. That earlier Clash win made Preece just the third driver in NASCAR history to win the Clash before winning an actual points-paying Cup race, joining Jeff Gordon (1994) and Denny Hamlin (2006) — meaning Daytona was genuinely his first points-race win, but not his first taste of victory lane in 2026.
The Real Argument: Points Leads Mean Nothing on a Superspeedway
Van Gisbergen’s 31-point cushion heading into the finale looked safe by normal NASCAR standards — most drivers protect a lead that size by simply avoiding risk and finishing consistently. But Daytona and Talladega, NASCAR’s two superspeedways, are structurally different from every other track on the circuit: tightly packed drafting racing means a single incident can collect a dozen cars regardless of who caused it or where they were running beforehand. Van Gisbergen didn’t make a mistake that cost him his Chase spot — he was simply positioned in traffic that got collected by someone else’s incident, which is exactly the kind of result that makes points-standings math at superspeedways fundamentally less predictable than anywhere else NASCAR races. That’s a legitimate structural argument for why the sport’s current playoff-elimination format puts real weight on race venues that reward chaos over consistency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the 2026 NASCAR regular-season finale at Daytona?
Ryan Preece, his first career Cup Series win in 249 starts.
How did Shane van Gisbergen miss the Chase?
He led Preece by 31 points entering the race but got caught up in a final-lap crash he didn’t cause, finishing behind Preece and missing the final Chase berth by 17 points.
Who finished behind Preece at Daytona?
Daniel Suarez and Tyler Reddick rounded out the top three.
Did van Gisbergen do anything wrong to lose his spot?
No — he won the opening stage and was running competitively; the elimination came from being caught in a crash triggered by other cars on the final lap.
The Bottom Line
Preece’s first career win landing in the one race that could simultaneously make his season and end someone else’s is the kind of story NASCAR’s superspeedway finales are built to produce — a 31-point lead evaporating in a single lap is either the sport’s format working exactly as designed or its biggest structural flaw, depending on which side of the 17-point gap a fan is standing on.
