Ryan Preece Joins JTG Daugherty Racing For 2019

(L-R) Ryan Preece, Ernie Cope and Tad Geschickter

Pete McCole/AR1

JTG Daugherty Racing announced today a new driver to their two-car lineup, signing 27-year-old Ryan Preece in a multi-year contract. Preece will join JTG Daugherty Racing for his first full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season starting in the 2019 DAYTONA 500 at Daytona International Speedway driving the No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

Preece, who made his mark driving modified in his native New England, has spent the last five years running in the NASCAR Xfinity Series – driving for Tommy Baldwin, Johnny Davis and Joe Gibbs. He'll join JTG driver Chris Buescher to complete the team's two-car stable for 2019.

"I’m really thankful for the opportunity for being able to race for Tad (Geschickter, team owner) and those guys, it’s just a dream come true," said Preece. "A lot of you know the path that I’ve gone down and the sleepless nights that I’ve gone through to chase after trophies and win races. To finally get to this level, and earn it, it’s really a short-tracker’s dream to finally get here and to race for such people with class. It’s a family owned team and that’s something that I’ve always been a part of with different Modified teams."

Preece has made nine starts in the Xfinity Series in 2018 running a partial schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing, tallying with one win, four top five finishes and six top-10 finishes in 2018.

Out of a total of 49 NXS races, he has two wins (Iowa Speedway, 2017 and Bristol Motor Speedway, 2018), eight top-five finishes, 11 top-10 finishes and one pole award. Preece also ran five Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2015 in the No. 98 car for Mike Curb.

Geschickter and JTG competition director Ernie Cope liked what they saw in Preece and his performance driving in the Whelen Modified Series.

Preece will replace A.J. Allmendinger as driver of the No. 47

Pete McCole/AR1

"I will say this, 25 years next year we have been racing. No one remembers this, but our very first driver we signed was Tony Stewart when he was 20 and our sponsorship fell through in December and he went and won the triple crown in IRL (Indy Racing League) the next two years," said Geschickter. "Robert Pressley our great driver broke his shoulder and Chevy came to us and said, we have this young 20-year-old named Jimmie Johnson and we would like for you to take a chance on him. He went out and led races for us right away and couldn’t sell the sponsors on taking a chance on a rookie. We had a chance to hire Ryan Newman along the way.

"I’ve made all the wrong decisions you could, so I’m not as dumb as I look. When Ryan (Preece) came through and said, he had an interest it was a no-brainer just to say we are not going to make that mistake again."

"To me that he is a winner," said Cope. "I started this not looking at what he was doing in NASCAR. When we started looking him up I was like, I have looked over the last three years of what he has done and what he’s about. I have checked him out pretty thoroughly and he is a hardcore racer."

– Pete McCole reporting from Charlotte Motor Speedway