A family team that started in sports car racing grew into a multi-series NASCAR operation, ran Cup cars on borrowed charters and became the centre of a 2025 charter dispute.
Rick Ware Racing is an American team that began as a Ware family effort in sports car racing. It returned to the Cup Series in 2017 with the No. 51 and sold a charter to Legacy Motor Club in a 2025 settlement after a dispute.
Rick Ware Racing is an American motorsports team that competes in the NASCAR Cup Series, the NASCAR Canada Series, ARCA, American Flat Track and the NHRA drag racing series. Its roots lie in a family effort that started in sports car racing, and its Cup presence has depended on leased and bought charters for much of its history.
Where did Rick Ware Racing begin?
The organisation grew out of Ware & Sons Racing, in which Rick Ware and his father John competed in the SCCA and IMSA series. The family raced under the Ware & Sons banner, with Rick going karting in the 1960s. In 1983 the outfit took the California Sports Car Club's Rookie of the Year award with Rick driving.
Rick went on to drive in a number of championship-winning efforts. In 1998 he tried to qualify a Ford for the Winston Cup event at Sonoma but failed to make the race. The organisation was renamed Ware Racing Enterprises during the 1990s, and in 2004 it became Rick Ware Racing.
A family team that ran Cup cars on borrowed charters, then became the centre of a dispute over one of them.
How did the Cup program start and grow?
Cup attempts began in 2004, when Stanton Barrett was entered in the No. 52. The 2005 entries went to Larry Gunselman, Jose Luis Ramirez and Derrike Cope, and 2006 saw Gunselman, Steve Portenga and Barrett, who drove the No. 52 and No. 30 entries.
In 2011 the team joined forces with the Front Row and Max Q operation that ran the No. 37. The partnership ran Tomy Drissi, who qualified for Sonoma but was not approved, and Chris Cook, who finished 27th. For 2012 the alliance with Max Q gave Timmy Hill most of the season in the No. 37, but the team missed five of six attempts, sat outside the top 35 and ended the partnership.
| Period | Car | Notable result |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 to 2006 | No. 52 and No. 30 | Barrett and Gunselman attempts, several failed to qualify |
| 2011 to 2012 | No. 37, with Front Row and Max Q | Chris Cook 27th at Sonoma; Hill missed five of six races |
| 2017 to 2018 | No. 51 Chevrolet and a part-time No. 52 | Justin Marks 12th at the 2018 Daytona 500 |
| 2019 to 2021 | Nos. 51, 52, 53 and 54 | Full-time Nos. 52 and 53 in 2019; No. 52 top 10 in 2021 |
| 2024 to 2025 | No. 51 | Justin Haley, then Cody Ware and Harrison Burton |
| 2026 | No. 51 Chevrolet | Switch from Ford, with an alliance with Richard Childress Racing |
What happened when the team returned to the Cup Series in 2017?
The team returned to Cup in 2017, running the No. 51 Chevrolet for much of the season without a charter. Timmy Hill missed the Daytona 500, and Cody Ware made his debut at the next race at Atlanta, finishing 39th after retiring with steering trouble.
The No. 51 was withdrawn at Talladega, and later Cody Ware returned for races at Dover and Pocono. A sponsor from East Carolina University and another from Clemson supported those races, and Ware left Dover early with back pain. The team made just 29 of the 36 starts that season.
For 2018 Ware's signing collapsed, leaving the No. 51 open. Justin Marks drove it at the Daytona 500 and finished 12th, with a partnership with Premium Motorsports and ECR Engines behind the car. Cole Custer and Harrison Rhodes were among those who followed.
How did the team expand in 2019 and 2020?
For 2019 Rick Ware Racing registered the No. 51 team as Petty Ware Racing after leasing the charter from Richard Petty Motorsports. The organisation also bought a charter from Front Row Motorsports, which had leased it to the defunct TriStar Motorsports, and that gave it a full-time No. 52 schedule.
The Daytona 500 that season was a chaotic day for the team. Both RWR cars were involved in an unusual crash on lap 159, which sent several cars into the wall. The team also fielded a third car, the No. 53, part-time, with B. J. McLeod among its drivers. In August 2019 it announced a fourth entry, the No. 54.
The team's record in 2019 was marred by penalties. NASCAR docked Rick Ware Racing 50 owner points and fined it US$50,000 after a finishing-order manipulation at Homestead, and the competition director was suspended indefinitely.
In 2020 the organisation also took over Premium Motorsports and its charter for the No. 15, which Brennan Poole drove under the Premium banner for the rest of that season.
Who drove the No. 51 and what did it achieve?
Cody Ware drove the No. 51 through much of the 2017 and 2018 seasons, and later returned to it full-time in 2025. Timmy Hill and a range of guest drivers also filled the car, and Harrison Rhodes made a one-off Cup debut in it.
Haley was the No. 51's full-time driver in 2024, under an arrangement meant to run for several years. He finished 17th at the Circuit of the Americas, but he was later disqualified after an inspection found the car below the minimum weight. He finished ninth at Darlington and at Gateway that year.
On 20 September 2024 Rick Ware Racing and Spire Motorsports swapped drivers for the rest of the season, so Haley moved to Spire's No. 7 and Corey LaJoie took the No. 51. In 2025 Cody Ware returned full-time, finishing 25th at Daytona, and Arby's sponsored the car for twelve races.
At the 2025 All-Star Race Harrison Burton ran the No. 51, finishing 20th of 23 participants.
What did the No. 15 and No. 52 achieve?
The No. 15 was the team's main Cup car from 2021. Derrike Cope made his final Daytona 500 start in it that year, but he was penalised for electrical issues and failed several inspections, and he crashed on lap four. James Davison later made the most starts for the car, with a best finish of 22nd at Martinsville.
David Ragan finished eighth at the 2022 Daytona 500, the team's best result after it bought the entry. In 2023 Riley Herbst finished tenth at Daytona, and in 2024 Kaz Grala drove 25 races in the car.
The No. 52 gave the team its first top 10 at the 2021 Daytona night race, when Josh Bilicki finished tenth. Joey Hand debuted at the Charlotte Roval that season, and the No. 52 was closed after the year.
How did the Xfinity and Truck programs go?
The Xfinity team returned in 2011 with Ford cars bought from Roush Fenway Racing and ran Timmy Hill for Rookie of the Year honours. Hill took the award despite missing the season opener, having not yet turned 18, the minimum age in the national series.
The Xfinity programme was shut down after the 2016 season, the team's 25th anniversary year, so that the organisation could focus on its Truck Series team.
The Truck program had a long, uneven history. In 1999 the Truck effort amounted to two starts, the first with Randy MacDonald at the wheel. In 2000 Ware suffered a serious neck injury at California Speedway, yet the team kept running a 20-race schedule under his ownership.
The Truck team returned in 2009 for two races, and in 2017 the program was revived with the No. 12 Chevrolet, which was dissolved after its fifth race.
What role did Tim Brown and the Modified series play?
Rick Ware Racing joined the Whelen Modified Tour in partnership with Tim Brown Motorsports. Brown's eighth title came in 2009 at Bowman-Gray Stadium, where he won five races that season. It was also Ware's first series win, in the No. 83 car.
Ware kept his promise to help Brown's career. Brown's Truck start came at Martinsville, where he ended up 27th in the No. 08 car.
What did Rick Ware Racing do outside NASCAR?
The team entered the NASCAR Canada Series in 2021 with Andrew Ranger in the No. 51. Ranger won at Flamboro Speedway on 12 September 2021. The team will return to the Canada Series in 2026 with D. J. Kennington in the No. 51, and it plans to run two Canada entries in 2027, with the No. 15 among them.
In IndyCar the team worked with Dale Coyne Racing. James Davison finished 33rd in the 2020 Indianapolis 500, and in 2021 Romain Grosjean drove most road and street events. Takuma Sato drove full-time in 2022 and Sting Ray Robb in 2023, with Katherine Legge taking the most starts in 2024.
In sports cars the team ran a Ligier JS P2 at the Asian Le Mans Series in 2019, then an LMP2 entry in IMSA, and in 2011 it finished 11th in class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. In motorcycle racing it won the 2007 AMA Arenacross title with Tuf Honda and rider Danny Smith, and Vicki Golden, who had raced for the team in Arenacross that year, won the X Games Moto X gold in 2011.
What happened in the 2025 charter dispute?
In 2025 Legacy Motor Club sued Rick Ware Racing over a charter sale. Both teams had signed a deal in March under which Rick Ware Racing would sell a charter, but LMC said the contract referred to a different charter from the one Rick Ware Racing had in mind.
In June Rick Ware Racing agreed to sell its NASCAR team to T. J. Puchyr, a co-founder of Spire Motorsports, and Rick Ware would stay on as a partner. A judge granted LMC a restraining order that July, and the two sides fought over the charter until a settlement in September, in which Rick Ware Racing sold the charter to LMC.
The agreement named a charter sale price of US$45 million for Charter 36, the one the No. 51 used, and LMC had offered an extra US$5 million for the other charter. RFK Racing was set to lease Charter 36 for 2026, and teams may lease a charter once every seven years. The rest of the settlement's terms have not been made public.
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