Ryan Preece describes what he was thinking when he ran out of fuel at end of Brickyard 400

The end of the Brickyard 400 on Saturday came down to a couple controversially timed decisions, ultimately allowing Kyle Larson to win the race under caution during double overtime after Ryan Preece spun around.

The race ended when Preece spun out just before the white flag was set to come out. And as he was trying to get off the race track to avoid a caution, officials initially kept the race green. Then Larson flew past and took the white flag, signaling the last lap.

It was only moments later that the caution came out, effectively ending the race.

Preece walked through what he was going through during the entire situation, with some advice earlier this season from Chase Briscoe floating through his mind.

“In the car in the moment you don’t know if there’s going to be a caution or not,” Ryan Preece said on Sirius XM NASCAR radio. “And at that point in time, you could say 15, 20, 25%, whatever reason it was weird. Chase Briscoe ran out of fuel earlier this year in Nashville and something that he said was at wide open throttle, the motor would fall on its face and die but at 20, 30% you could get it running.

“Well that was what happened, is when we slid into the inside wall and all the tires were flat, all I was thinking is there’s got to be a caution here and I’m going to try and get going to pit road that way when we restart you don’t want to lose a lap.”

If anything, Preece was trying to clear out to get back going. His car had other ideas.

Preece had burned a couple tires in the spin and didn’t have the traction to get going on the track. He was also fighting with his engine.

That’s where the thinking changed.

“And at that point you’re on rubbed blocks, you’re not really moving,” Ryan Preece said. “And that was what Tony had said, ‘Hey, they’re trying to get to the white, see if you can get out of the way.’ I tried throwing it in reverse to back myself up towards the wall and get off the racetrack but it just died, so that was kind of all those things happening in about the span of 10 seconds, which felt like minutes. But ideally it wasn’t exactly something you want to have happen there running out of fuel.”

NASCAR fans were upset with how the race finished, unhappy that the caution came out when it did. But Preece’s car was on the inside of the track and would have been an issue.

In any case, Kyle Larson took another win and Ryan Preece has a learning experience he’ll be able to look back on in the future.