RFK Hopes Strong Brickyard 400 Provides Team Momentum

Led by Brad Keselowski, RFK Racing put three cars inside the top 11 in the Brickyard 400. (David Rosenblum/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

By Justin Glenn, SWN Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (July 29, 2026) – For a second year in a row, RFK Racing as an organization finished strong at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Team co-owner Brad Keselowski finished sixth, the newly re-signed Ryan Preece came home eighth, and team front runner Chris Buescher was 11th during the 30th Brickyard 400.

Sunday marked the second consecutive year RFK has landed all team cars with top finishes at Indy’s big oval.

“We had three solid days for our RFK cars, which was good,” said Keselowski. “Preece caught a little bit of a break there with getting the yellow at the right time and maximized his day, and I felt like we were just solid all day.”

The top finishes were needed as all team cars are on a different trajectory in 2026. Buescher is jockeying for seeding in the Chase postseason fight, while Preece and Keselowski  sit 38 and 50 points out of the top 16, respectively, trying to catch up and snag one of the final spots.

Buescher started 15th, Keselowski was 16th, and Preece began out back in 34th. In order to pass, drivers had to fight tooth and nail, making strategy the only easy way forward. The 30th Brickyard 400 became a chess match between crew chiefs because of that.

Preece caught a break by maximizing the lap-96 caution where Daniel Dye wrecked. Crew chief Derrick Finley had Preece run long until the yellow, which bumped him up the running order. He finished seventh in stage two.

The boost could’ve been taken a step further had Finley not called for four tires, instead of two like the majority of the field. It would have put him on par with eventual winner Corey Heim, where long game strategy prevailed into a possible win.

It shuffled Preece from the possibility of an upset win to just a top 10. The Berlin, Conn., veteran is still in search of his first points paying win after a Bowman Gray Clash exhibition win in February.

He thought bigger picture though, and netted his second straight top 10 following one at North Wilkesboro Speedway the preceding week.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do from our group to contend for wins, but I’m happy,” said Preece. “Derrick Finley really got the strategy right on that one and we just had to maintain it.”

For Keselowski, Indy was a change of pace. He was in a rare race weekend where he had the top team car. The veteran took down the prestigious race by hanging around sixth to 10th most of the afternoon.

“We had a solid day. We put ourselves in position to have a top 10 day and ended up sixth,” said Keselowski, speaking of the No. 6 car individually. “We had a lot of good restarts and pretty good strategy, but that’s about all the speed we had.”

Buescher wasn't the class of the Ford camp, but did secure two stage points and settled for 11th.

The Brickyard prowess came after Preece’s 2027 team option was exercised on July 25. Buescher sits ninth in points and Keselowski continues to stack races since his December leg injury.

The RFK standard is to get all cars into the Chase, but getting at least two is an improvement from years past where all have missed. Preece is in year three at RFK and is a mainstay on the cut line, but hasn’t gotten over the hump. Keselowski missed the 2025 postseason and Buescher has missed out since 2023.

A positive entering the final month of the regular season is the tracks coming up. There are three short tracks and one superspeedway left, which falls into the lap of RFK and Ford.

Preece comes from short track racing. He was fifth at Iowa last year and has two top 15s in the last two years at New Hampshire. He qualified on pole at Richmond last season.

Buescher isn’t known for short circuits but does have a 2023 Richmond win. Keselowski has two Iowa top 10s, and a best of third last season with 73 laps led. He was ninth at Richmond last August.

Daytona is a collect track where all RFK entries traditionally are strong.

What comes first however is the final week off of 2026. Then the final 14 weeks until the November championship begins.

Coverage of the Iowa Corn 350 is slated for Sunday, Aug. 9 at 3:30 p.m. ET on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.