During the Wurth 400 at Texas Motor Speedway, Preece appeared to drive his #60 Ford Mustang into the back of the preceding #54 Toyota Camry on Lap 101.
Gibbs spun into the outside wall and suffered too much damage to continue in the race. He was classified 36th.
Preece foreshadowed the egregious act with an expletive-laden rant over his radio.
“All right, when I get to that #54, I’m done with him. F***ing idiot,” he said.
The clash prompted a hilarious response from Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen, who radioed to his crew, “Holy shit! He just committed a murder.”
Preece was penalised under Sections 4.3 and 4.4.A of the NASCAR Rule Book which lists “wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from competition as a result” as a punishable offence.
NASCAR vice president of race communications Mike Forde said Preece’s comments were considered when penalising the driver.
“We do look at all available resources, whether that’s the video, in-car audio, SMT data,” Forde said.
“And really what this came down to is (Preece) said what he said, and then he did what he said. And so in our view, it was intentionally wrecking another vehicle.”
The monetary fine also came with an addition 25-point penalty, which demoted Preece one place to 13th and 38 points above the cut-off line.
Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio prior to being penalised, the Ford star explained what happened from his point of view.
“There are people that you know you can race with respect around and cut breaks to,” Preece said in reference to Gibbs.
“Like I can think of multiple times yesterday that instead of putting another driver in a pretty tough spot, you make the decision not to do that.
“I feel like I just grew up racing against people that I learned that lesson a long, long time ago, when I was a lot younger.
“Sometimes I question if those same lessons are learned by the time you get to Cup.
“So for me, it was more along the lines of he pretty much was very close to clear getting into (Turn) 3, and I could lift, but I didn’t.
“I was right there and I felt like he came down, and I was not going to cut him a break because in the past, him and I have had problems.
“So I’ve got a little bit of a short fuse with him and I, with how we’re racing.
“And that was just one of those situations that, could I cut him a break? Probably could have, but I didn’t.
“And ultimately, I didn’t feel like I hit him. I felt like I stayed right on him, and he got loose, and from there on, unfortunately, he wrecked.”
Curiously, Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch was not penalised for his clash with Legacy Motor Club driver John Hunter Nemechek.
The two drivers collided on the penultimate lap exiting Turn 2. Busch appeared to swerve into the path of Nemechek entering Turn 3.
However, NASCAR could not conclusively say whether Busch had intentionally hit Nemechek – noting damage to the #8 Chevrolet Camaro.
“The SMT data is largely what played a role for us in this decision,” Forde said.
“(NASCAR vice president of competition) Elton Sawyer said the data told us that after the incident, (Busch) was turning the wheel all the way left just to go straight.
“So we had a feeling that he had some pretty significant damage. And it was inconclusive on if that was a damaged vehicle that caused (Busch) to get into (Nemechek), or if it was intentional.
“There were zero things that, in our opinion, said he did this intentionally, and it rose to the level of penalty. So that’s why we landed on no penalty.
“There was no audio that came out that said, ‘I’m going to wreck the 42,’ and then he wrecked the 42,” Forde said.
“So that’s one. And then two is the SMT data didn’t show anything that suggested that he did do it, and also the fact that his steering was so jacked.
“It showed that there was at least a plausible chance that his car had some damage that led to what happened.”
The NASCAR Cup Series continues at Watkins Glen on May 11.
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