NASCAR News: RFK Racing confirms appeal against Ryan Preece penalty

RFK Racing have said that they will appeal against Ryan Preece's punishment handed down by NASCAR this week.

The RFK Racing star was fined $50,000 and docked 25 driver points after on-track incidents which lit up the Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Preece was dinged for retaliation against Ty Gibbs after Sunday's race, running up right behind the Joe Gibbs Racing star when the latter wrecked, having previously said: "Alright, when I get to that 54 I'm done with him."

It's still not entirely clear whether Preece actually made contact when the two met on the track some laps later, with replays simply showing that the pair were line astern when Gibbs veered into the outside wall.

A team statement released on Thursday, two days after NASCAR's original decision, read: "RFK Racing has decided to appeal the penalties by NASCAR against Ryan Preece.

"We appreciate the opportunity to share our findings with the National Motorsports Appeals Panel at the appropriate time. Additionally, our organization respectfully embraces the forum provided by NASCAR to present our case."

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What Preece and Gibbs said

Preece's earlier rant – self-described – was: "Alright when I get to that 54 I'm done with him. F***ing idiot. That car is so f***ing fast, p***es me off. I’m gonna vent for 15 seconds. I can't stand when idiots like him have fast race cars where they can do stupid s*** and get away with it. End of rant."

The RFK driver told Frontstretch after the race: "I’ll be honest with you. I hate that he wrecked, but decisions you make on the race track, there are repercussions. And I try to race everybody with an amount of respect that I’d like in return.

"And when you don’t do that, I’m not gonna cut you a break. And that’s what happened."

Gibbs jumped on social media after the wreck to repost a transcript of Preece's earlier message, adding: "Hmm, at least he is honest."

When asked for his assessment of the incident by media after the race he prevaricated somewhat, saying: "I haven’t seen the replay. It broke one of the little welds on the front clip, so it probably wasn’t the best decision to go back out. We weren’t going to be fast, so we’ll go racing next week."