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Notes of Interest |
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● Ryan Preece heads to Phoenix Raceway Sunday for the eighth time in his NASCAR Cup Series career. He made his first start at the track in 2015 and has a best finish of 18th in the March 2020 race. Preece has made three NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Phoenix and tallied a best finish of fifth in 2018 for Joe Gibbs Racing.
● Preece will be participating in The Go Bowling! PBA NASCAR Celebrity Invitational at The Barn at Phoenix Raceway. The invitational will feature four professional bowlers from the PBA Tour teaming up with Preece and his Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) teammates Aric Almirola and Chase Briscoe in doubles competitions. The event will be aired as a two-hour special on FS1 at noon EDT Sunday, prior to the start of the United Rentals Work United 500 Cup Series race, which will air on FOX at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
● Preece made his seventh Cup Series start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last Sunday, his first with SHR. He was battling a tight racecar all race long and the team worked to make solid adjustments throughout the race. The No. 41 was credited with a 23rd-place finish.
● Preece was a victim of circumstances in the second event of the season at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, getting caught up in a multicar accident on a lap-88 restart and ultimately finishing 33rd.
● Preece opened the 2023 season with a strong showing in the 65th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. He and the No. 41 Ford Mustang qualified 20th and logged the best 10-consecutive-lap average in final practice. On race day, Preece finished second in Stage 1 before getting caught up in a multicar accident on lap 181. He was unable to return to the race and finished 36th.
● United Rentals returns this season to partner with Preece, and also with SHR. United Rentals is the entitlement sponsor for Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, and Sunday’s Cup Series race, the United Rentals Work United 500. Preece’s No. 41 Ford Mustang will sport the blue-and-white scheme of United Rentals for the 312-lap race on Sunday.
● United Rentals, Inc. (NYSE: URI), the largest equipment rental company in the world, is serving as the primary sponsor of Ryan Preece and the No. 41 team of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) for select NASCAR Cup Series races in 2023. The partnership began with the non-points Busch Light Clash at The Coliseum, Feb. 4-5 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. United Rentals has an integrated network of 1,449 rental locations in North America, 13 in Europe, 27 in Australia and 19 in New Zealand. In North America, the company operates in 49 states and every Canadian province. The company’s approximately 24,700 employees serve construction and industrial customers, utilities, municipalities, homeowners and others. The company offers approximately 4,700 classes of equipment for rent with a total original cost of $19.3 billion. United Rentals is a member of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, the Barron’s 400 Index and the Russell 3000 Index®. The company is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. Additional information about United Rentals is available at UnitedRentals.com.
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Ryan Preece, Driver of the No. 41 United Rentals Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing |
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What are you looking forward to most about racing at Phoenix this weekend? “It’s not necessarily a short track but it’s your cross between an intermediate and short track. I feel like we’ve been consistently gaining on it and speed hasn’t necessarily been a problem. I’m looking forward to getting some practice in at Phoenix and seeing where we stack up. We’re all working as a team to continue unloading fast racecars. We just have to put it all together now. I think Phoenix matches my driving style a little more, so we’ll see.”
How are things going with the new team now that you’re a few races into the season? “We’re definitely on offense this weekend at Phoenix. We weren’t able to get out of the big hole we’re in like we wanted to at Las Vegas. We’re in a big hole right now and we’ve got to start digging ourselves out of it. We have not had the results this No. 41 team deserves in these last few weeks. Las Vegas was a little bit of a better result but still not where we need to be. I’m looking forward to getting some practice in at Phoenix and seeing where we unload right off the truck. The communication with my team is there and the speed is there, and this weekend we have to just put it all together and get a good finish.”
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