NASCAR star blames key reason for playoff failure in huge rant

Ryan Preece was one of the drivers to miss the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs on Saturday night at Daytona, and he had no questions about who was responsible, unleashing an expletive-laden rant on team radio after the chequered flag.

The driver of the No. 60 RFK Ford needed to win and in in Florida to make the postseason at Alex Bowman's expense, after the No. 48 was wrecked early in the crucial race while sitting on the playoff bubble.

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Bowman and his Hendrick Motorsports team needed a driver who was already locked into the playoffs to claim victory in order to squeeze into the postseason, in order to avoid a first-time winner pushing him out.

Ryan Blaney obliged, cutting through from 13th to first in the last two laps to claim victory in one of the closest group finishes in NASCAR history – with just 0.049 seconds covering the top four.

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Preece had been leading in the closing stages with Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott leading one of the lines behind him, only for the pair to take the top line above Preece and leave him floundering in no-man's land without any support as the top and bottom lanes streamed by him.

Larson and Elliott, of course, are Hendrick team-mates of Bowman, looking to play the team game to make sure their Chevy-backed employer got another car into the postseason.

After taking the chequered, Preece raged on his radio: "Well, that sucks. If I had a Ford behind me, we would've fu****g won that race! Did everything fu****g right. That fu****g sucks.

"I mean, I know why they did it. They did it so the 48 couldn't get knocked out. M**********r!"

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