DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Ryan Preece delivered a blunt message after a flip at Daytona International Speedway. He said that he was lucky to walk away from the crash that sent the Daytona 500 to overtime.
"I don't know if it's the diffuser or what that makes these cars take off like a sheet of plywood when you walk out on a windy day," Preece told Fox Sports.
"When the car took off like that and it got real quiet, all I thought about was my daughter. So I'm lucky to walk away."
The incident took place with five laps remaining in the race. Christopher Bell was spun into the outside wall. His car then slid backward into the pack and collided with Preece's car at just the right angle to lift the front end off of the ground.
The front of the No. 60 Ford remained in the air before ultimately flipping upside down. It landed on the roof, slid for several feet, and then flipped upright before slamming into the outside wall. The car continued to bounce before landing on all four tires.
Another look at Ryan Preece's scary wreck. #NASCAR #DAYTONA500 pic.twitter.com/nQ2RcqGUNY
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 17, 2025
Preece was able to climb from the destroyed stock car under his own power. He went to the infield care center and underwent evaluation before being released.
This marked the second time since 2023 that Preece had flipped at the superspeedway. The first time took place in August 2023. His No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford slid sideways through the grass and then took flight.
The stock car flipped nearly a dozen times before landing upside down. Preece was able to climb from the destroyed car.
"The thing I want to say as a father, as a racer, is we keep beating on a door hoping for a different result," Preece told media members after exiting the care center on Sunday. "And I think we know where there's a problem at superspeedways.
"I don't want to be the example of when it finally does get somebody. I don't want it to be me. I've got a 2-year-old daughter just like a lot of us. We have family. Something needs to be done because cars lifting off the ground like that -- that felt, honestly, worse than Daytona in '23."
NASCAR addressed one aspect of the 2023 crash by removing the grass and paving that particular section of the track. The sanctioning body has also continued to make updates to the cars in an attempt to keep them on the ground, including experimenting with mandatory air deflectors.
The efforts have helped, but cars have still occasionally gone airborne in high-speed crashes. Sunday night was only the latest example, and it only reinforced Preece's belief that something needs to change.