The majority of coverage from Sunday’s XFINITY 500 centered around those in the Playoffs, and rightfully so, as the 500-lap gauntlet from Martinsville ultimately decided who would compete for a championship in Phoenix.
When the checkered flag was displayed, the top-three finishers — William Byron, Ryan Blaney, and Chase Elliott — were not just playoff-eligible drivers, but were also drivers who needed to win to secure themselves a spot in the Championship 4.
In the context of the overall campaign, those stories definitely deserve precedence, but that doesn’t make performances from non-playoff drivers, like we saw on Sunday with Ryan Preece, Todd Gilliland, and Josh Berry, any less important.
This coming weekend at Phoenix, Ryan Preece is preparing to wrap what has been the best season of his NASCAR Cup Series career. Driving the No. 60 for RFK Racing, the Berlin, Connecticut-native has scored a career-high three top-fives and 13 top-10 finishes.
Sunday’s 500-lapper from Martinsville, though, was one of Preece’s best performances in the NASCAR Cup Series, despite the final rundown showing a sixth-place finish.
During the race’s final stage, Preece had progressed as high in the running order as third and was among the fastest cars on the racetrack. While the deficit of more than four seconds was going to be difficult to make up, a caution in the middle of a green-flag stop cycle didn’t even provide the 35-year-old driver the opportunity to try.
“I thought I was the best car on the long run, but it’s challenging because you’re dealing with traffic, so anything you gain, sometimes you lose,” said Preece. “Probably needed track position, overall, I think that was probably the biggest thing. Our car was phenomenal. I wish that caution didn’t come out, not sure how it came out, but we had a really good car.”
Success at Martinsville, both in the NASCAR Cup Series and outside of it, isn’t a brand-new concept for Preece, who has been to victory lane twice in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at the half-mile paperclip. In 2023, while driving for Stewart-Haas Racing, Preece also sat on pole and led 135 laps at Martinsville.
“I consider myself a short track guy, so when I come to a short track and I don’t run as well as I feel like I should, that being where I come from, is frustrating,” Preece added. “So, today I felt like I could demonstrate what the tools that we learned racing at short tracks, and that was fun.”
Preece enters the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway sitting 18th in series point standings, an improvement of five spots over his previous best at NASCAR’s top-level, and only 26 markers behind teammate Chris Buescher.
Just a couple of positions behind Preece was Todd Gilliland, who, one week after scoring an impressive runner-up finish at Talladega Superspeedway, was able to drive his Grillo’s Pickles Ford Mustang to a ninth-place result.
It’s the first time in his four-year tenure competing at NASCAR’s top-level that Gilliland has been able to record back-to-back top-10 finishes. Additionally, his fifth top-10 of 2025 means that the Sherrills Ford, North Carolina-native has set a new single-season record for top-10s.
“Overall, I feel like the grip in my car was really good, if we could have gotten our balance perfect, but that probably goes for a lot of people out here,” Gilliland quipped after the race.
While the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series campaign has featured some difficulties for both Gilliland and Front Row Motorsports, the last six to eight weeks have provided a silver lining, as the organization looks to tackle the 2026 campaign with the same three-driver lineup.
In the last six NASCAR Cup Series events, Gilliland has no finishes worse than 21st.
“I’m so proud of my team for the way we closed out in the last six weeks or so, for a while there it seemed like we were getting caught up in wrecks over the early Summer, and it took a lot of momentum away from us,” Gilliland added. “So, I’m really, really proud of my team for coming back. It’s a long season, and at that point, it’s hard to rebound sometimes. I believe wholeheartedly in my team, and it’s nice to see some good results.”
In eight NASCAR Cup Series starts at Martinsville Speedway, Gilliland has managed to record three top-10 results — second-most of any racetrack in his career to Talladega Superspeedway (four).
“This is probably one of my favorite racetracks,” Gilliland exclaimed. “I just feel really comfortable here, and I actually know what I’m trying to achieve, which is really, really fun to be able to come here and do that, so, you can’t do it without a great car. My car was pretty good and qualified well, and yeah, overall, we just put together a solid weekend.”
Josh Berry, driving the No. 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Wood Brothers Racing, also scored a solid top-10 result, despite being tossed around like a ping-pong ball in a spin cycle. Just a couple of spots behind him, continuing impressive strides on the ovals, was Shane Van Gisbergen, finishing 14th.
