Preece Set for NASCAR Sprint Cup Debut
LOUDON, NH — Ryan Preece of Berlin, CT will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut in today’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Preece is driving the No. 98x Mohawk Northeast/East West Marine Chevrolet for Tommy Baldwin Racing.
“It’s exciting,” Preece said. “Obviously, you’re on NASCAR’s biggest stage right here with everybody else. So just want to have a good clean day and have a good run so we got 300 laps to do that.”
Preece races regularly in New England. The 2013 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion has won championships at Stafford (CT) Motor Speedway and Thompson (CT) Speedway Motorsports Park. Preece has won 83 Modified races and once in TQ Midgets.
Preece said his goals are “just running all the laps, finishing the race, just basically putting the car in the trailer like it came out.“
“This is probably the best place we could’ve brought him to get his first start and especially all the experience he’s had in the Modified here and too bad he got caught up in that last lap wreck leading yesterday,” team owner Tommy Baldwin, Jr. said. “He got wiped right out as far as I was concerned watching it. … The most important race of his career is today, so hopefully he can stay out of trouble and get a good finish.”
“It is what it is at this point,” was Preece’s comment on the last lap crash in yesterday’s F.W. Webb 100.
“We were gonna to run him in seven races if we had the 36 car and we had to get rid of that over the winter, but we’ll see how he does well today. We have something else may be etched out a little bit … one more race maybe at the end of the year in Miami. So if everything goes good here and we can put something together, we’ll do it.”
Baldwin said he will remain dedicated to one car next season, the No. 7 driven by Alex Bowman. He hopes to continue this weekend’s arrangement with Jay Robinson into next season.
“The best would (be) to keep him in the 98 car us supplying the cars and the technical service. It worked really well this weekend so far so it’s less of a headache for both teams. Jay Robinson has the ability to have, you know, better equipment and more support and we get the chance to showcase Ryan, so it works both ways.”
TBR has used both drivers to try and improve the setup. In the final practice, one team worked on the front of the car and the other the back.
Preece is running a tribute paint scheme to his grandfather Bob Judkins, owner of the famed No. 2x Modified. Baldwin has honored Richie Evans, Len Boehler, and most recently, his father in the Bojangles Southern 500 with a throwback theme.
“To have Bobby Judkins, which is Ryan’s granddad, it’s pretty special,” Baldwin said. “I’m a Modified guy. I’ve respected the history ever since I was little of that class. It’s obviously the first class NASCAR ever had and it’s been the longest running class and there’s been so many great guys that have worked on race cars and owned race cars in this Modified division it’s always, always, always when I have the ability to give back I will.”
“My grandfather’s real happy,” Preece said. “It’s cool to see the smile on his face, obviously. But a little Modified tribute in there is already pretty cool if we can do that.”
NEAR Hall of Famer Bob Judkins began his career in auto racing in the early 1960s. He said the original 2x paint scheme came from his driver’s request. Judkins painted his cars red and driver Ed Flemke wanted the number to be 2x.
Judkins had a number of greats over the years including Gene Bergin, Ron Bouchard, Fred DeSarro, Ed Flemke, Jerry Marquis, Paul Radford, Ken Shoemaker, Jimmy Winks.
“I had a lot of good ones,” Judkins said. “I know that. As far as I’m concerned the drivers made me really. I know it takes two to tango, but I had good luck with my drivers.”
According to Judkins, the car ran “everywhere.” He raced throughout New England at New London-Waterford, Norwood, Monadnock, Plainville, Riverside Park, Stafford, and Thompson. He traveled south to Hickory, Langley, Martinsville, and South Boston. He also won at Albany-Saratoga and Fonda in New York and New Smyrna in Florida.
Judkins is one of the first car owners to put a Pinto body on a Modified. Traditionally the cars used available coupe bodies through the 1960s. By 1970, the cars were using current bodies like the Chevrolet Camaro. Judkins wanted to run a Pinto body but met resistance from NASCAR at the time.
“NASCAR wouldn’t let me run the coupes anymore,” Judkins said. “They said ‘they’ve got to be full bodies,’ so that’s when I went to a Pinto. And then after I built it, they said I couldn’t run it ’cause it was too late of a model or something, so I ran it in the outlaw shows and did real good with it and finally they voted and said I could run it.”
The ‘outlaw’ shows saw Judkins go to Oxford with driver Gene Bergin. He won twice in 1971 (July 28 and August 15). The Getty Opens were 100 lap races and paid $1,000 to win. “Finally Jack Arute helped me a little bit. He pushed the issue and we got it voted in.”
When asked about the success of the Pinto, Judkins said, “It was just a simple, good car to build. Everything fell in place. It was light and it worked out good.“
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com
EdFlemke.com
NEAR1.org
OxfordPlainsSpeedway.com
TheThirdTurn.com
UltimateRacingHistory.com
“Bergin Gains 2nd Straight $1,000 Open Prize.” The Lewiston Daily Sun16 Aug. 1671, sec. 1: 13. Web. 29 Sept. 2015. <https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iwMgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TmQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1257,5105709>.