Category: Cup Series

‘Really good team and really good driver’ beat Hamlin at Bristol

Denny Hamlin gave the perfect summation of his Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “A really strong race, a really strong month, for the [No.] 11 car, and [we’re] doing a lot of things right,” Hamlin said. “But sometimes you run into a really fast car …

Denny Hamlin gave the perfect summation of his Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“A really strong race, a really strong month, for the [No.] 11 car, and [we’re] doing a lot of things right,” Hamlin said. “But sometimes you run into a really fast car and a really fast driver, and we finished second today.”

Hamlin finished second to Kyle Larson, who led 411 of 500 laps. It ended the No. 11’s two-race winning streak from Martinsville Speedway (March 30) and Darlington Raceway (April 6) and it denied Hamlin a chance to win three consecutive races for the first time in his Cup Series career.

“Once I got to second with 200 to go or so, Kyle really stretched it out on me the first 50, 60 laps of that run, and then we ran back to him heavy before that green flag cycle,” Hamlin said of the chain of events. “At that point, I thought with 200 to go that Kyle had the best car. I was kind of next in line, and I was going to need him to stub his toe to win the race.

“I tried not to make any mistakes. I kept running my race and with 100 to go and after I ran him down, I was like, ‘OK, well, maybe I have something for him here.’ I gave it all I got, but it just wasn’t enough.”

There was no denying Larson, who didn’t put a wheel wrong all race. Neither did Larson’s team.

“I thought [Larson] was able to navigate traffic slightly better than what I was, and that was a big benefit,” Hamlin said. “I felt like in open racetrack I could run with him and was able to catch him there on the second long stint, but I couldn’t navigate traffic quite as well as he could.”

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Cup Series teams also didn’t have the tire variable that some expected after Saturday when there was heavy wear. Sunday, there was hardly any wear and it took longer than anticipated to lay rubber on the racetrack before multiple grooves began to be an option.

Hamlin described the tire situation as a “riddle” but figured it must be temperature-related. Saturday was 45 degrees and Sunday was sunny and 65 degrees. This produced a less-than-optimally pleasing race for some, with just four leaders and four lead changes.

“You got to give teams their due when they dominate,” Hamlin said of the product. “We shouldn’t throw mud on the racing or whatever because someone goes out there and dominates. I, at least, kept him honest for a little while there. They were superior here in the fall, and they were superior again today.

“Sometimes you’ll have that, and someone will hit it. That’s what will happen when you have a really good team and a really good driver.”

Larson dominates in emotional Cup Series victory at Bristol

He did it for Jon. For the second straight day at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kyle Larson dominated a NASCAR race and dedicated the victory to friend and PR representative Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the race …

He did it for Jon.

For the second straight day at Bristol Motor Speedway, Kyle Larson dominated a NASCAR race and dedicated the victory to friend and PR representative Jon Edwards, who passed away suddenly during the week leading up to the race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.

On Sunday, Larson won the Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race in overwhelming fashion, leading 411 of 500 laps and sweeping both stages.

The victory was Larson’s second of the season, his second straight at the 0.533-mile high-banked short track and the 31st of his career, and it came one day after the driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet ran away with the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Thunder Valley.

 

“This one’s definitely for Jon,” said Larson, who finished second in Friday night’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, one spot short of sweeping the weekend. “He’s just a great guy. Successful weekend here. Wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.

“Just a flawless race once again here at Bristol for the No. 5 team. Really, really good car. That was a lot of fun.”

Larson, who brushed the outside wall at the apex of Turns 1 and 2 with five laps left—without consequence—finished 2.250s in front of Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin, who fell one spot short of a third straight Cup victory. Hamlin’s teammate, Ty Gibbs, was 6.679s back in third in a race that ran without caution for the final 235 laps.

“However many laps of green we ran there was a lot of fun,” Larson said. “I was pretty comfortable with things, and then Denny came on really strong there before the pit cycle and kind of kept the pressure on from there.”

After the final pit stops, Hamlin could close within a second of Larson in traffic but never threatened to take the lead.

“You have to give that team their due—just a dominant performance,” Hamlin said. “It looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy. It was all I had to try to keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota.

“But this weekend, we are all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, (racing journalist) Al Pearce, (team owner) Shige Hattori (all of whom passed away within the last eight days). We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over the last week, so our thoughts are with them.”

“Wish we could have got one more spot, but I just wanted to keep him honest there at the end. That was all I was trying to do, but he was a little too much to handle.”

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Hamlin and Larson have finished 1-2 on seven occasions. Sunday’s race was the first of the seven times Larson has come out on top.

Contrary to strong indications from Saturday’s practice, Bristol’s concrete surface rubbered in, and tire wear was not the factor that most teams and drivers anticipated. Ryan Blaney, for instance, ran 175 laps on one set of tires before pitting on lap 440.

Chase Briscoe came home fourth, as JGR claimed the three positions behind Larson. Blaney ran long during the final green-flag run, led 48 laps after Larson pitted on lap 390 for tires and fuel and worked his way back to fifth at the end.

Pole winner Alex Bowman led the first 39 laps before Larson grabbed the top spot for the first time. Larson went to win the first stage over Hamlin and the second over Bowman, who later fell out of the race when his engine expired.

The Stage 2 victory was the 66th of Larson’s career, tying him with Martin Truex Jr. for the most since stage racing was introduced in 2017.

William Byron charged forward to a sixth-place finish after starting 26th. Ross Chastain ran seventh, followed by Christopher Bell and AJ Allmendinger, the last driver on the lead lap. Austin Dillon was 10th, the first driver one lap down.

Gibbs riding high on a string of top 10 finishes after Bristol

The tide continued to turn in the right direction for Ty Gibbs Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. A third-place finish was a season-best for Gibbs and the No. 54 team. It was also his second top-10 finish and second consecutive in the NASCAR Cup …

The tide continued to turn in the right direction for Ty Gibbs Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

A third-place finish was a season-best for Gibbs and the No. 54 team. It was also his second top-10 finish and second consecutive in the NASCAR Cup Series.

“It was a good day,” Gibb said. “I was kind of managing the race and figuring out the way we needed to be. It was fun. I had a blast. We’ve definitely made an improvement. Thank you to Monster Energy, SAIA, and Toyota. It was fun.”

Two weeks ago, Gibbs was 31st in the championship standings. The team, under the direction of new crew chief Tyler Allen, got off to a rocky start, finishing 25th or worse in four out of seven races.

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A quiet day at Darlington Raceway netted a ninth-place finish. He qualified 11th and managed an average running position of 13th.

Bristol was a sixth-place qualifying effort. Gibbs averaged a seventh-place running position before ultimately finishing third.

“It’s definitely really nice,” Gibbs said of the recent positive stretch. “We had a really good clean day, so you know, really happy to have that. It’s been a pretty chaotic start to our year. I think we’re back where we’re going to run.

“Really excited for the future and to get back racing after this off weekend. I think we’re really capable of winning a lot this year, so we’ll see what we can do and go out and have a fun time [and] have a blast.”

Blaney’s long-run gamble at Bristol pays off with fifth

Ryan Blaney and Jonathan Hassler tried something different to spice up an uneventful Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway. The move to run long on the final pit cycle didn’t net Blaney the victory, but he still felt it was worth trying to …

Ryan Blaney and Jonathan Hassler tried something different to spice up an uneventful Sunday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The move to run long on the final pit cycle didn’t net Blaney the victory, but he still felt it was worth trying to steal one. Blaney cycled to the race lead on lap 392 under the green flag cycle and stayed on track for 48 laps before coming to pit road.

He was running fifth when the cycle began. He finished fifth.

“Running long right there was really our only play to win,” Blaney said. “We were running fifth before the cycle started, so why not take a shot? I thought I did a really good job of saving my tires to make sure I didn’t have a problem. We went really, really long. I had a lot of people lapped for a while and hung on pretty strong, and then we finally decided to pit and got back to fifth.

“I had third and fourth right in front of me, so it almost played out even better than what it did. It was a good weekend and a good call by Jonathan to have a shot to try to do something different, but it just didn’t work out.”

Blaney was the only other driver on the lead lap on lap 427. He was one of just four leaders during the afternoon.

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Race-dominating Kyle Larson cycled back to the lead and led the rest of the way after Blaney pitted. Larson led 411 of 500 laps.

Cup Series teams were given an extra set of tires that weren’t needed because tire wear was not as high as it was Saturday or last spring. The field realized that, approximately 50 laps into the race, they could begin to push harder, and from then on it was clear that tires would not be a variable.

“Just kind of a learning thing all day,” Blaney said. “The first run of the race, nobody really knew what the tires were going to do, and everyone kind of just rode around there a little bit. We finally got going and we went so long. Then it was like, ‘Alright, we can go a little bit harder.’ The track widened out, which was good. I honestly don’t know if I really anticipated that with the track getting wide and really not having tire problems. I’m glad that’s the way it was.

“I think it put on a pretty decent race. There were a lot of comers and goers, except for the lead, I guess, but it was a pretty fun day and a really good finish. We kind of took a chance of running really long there, seeing if we’d get a caution, and then we finally bailed and had to make all the ground up and got back to fifth. Overall, it was a solid weekend.”

Cup Series teams facing another Bristol unknown come race day

There might be one thing NASCAR Cup Series teams know for sure going into Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway – they don’t know what will happen. “It’ll be interesting to see what the mindset is there and what the reality that we live in is …

There might be one thing NASCAR Cup Series teams know for sure going into Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway — they don’t know what will happen.

“It’ll be interesting to see what the mindset is there and what the reality that we live in is tomorrow, as far as what the tires do with it being a little warmer, and where [it leads us],” Alex Bowman said after winning the pole. “The biggest thing is it’s going to be a ton of learning on the go because, as much as we all think we know exactly what it’s going to do from practice, we probably really don’t have a clue, and we’re going to have to learn as we go.”

It’s deja vu from one year ago with the spring race at Bristol.

The high tire wear race received high praise as it put tire management in the driver’s hands while creating an unknown on the track of who would master it the best. A run on tires, before they started to cord or wear down enough that it became urgent to bolt on a set of new ones, was less than 50 laps.

Saturday, it appeared to be much of the same during practice, and it was unexpected.

Goodyear brought the same tire run in both races at Bristol last season. The spring race saw high tire wear, but the fall race did not.

“Everything looks the same, truthfully,” Denny Hamlin said. “I wouldn’t have expected it, but certainly it looks like the formula is striking again. It’s going to be an interesting race to see how it all plays out. There are marbles up at the top; obviously the bottom is where you want to be, and the tires are wearing out. It should be fun.”

Although there were marbles up against the wall, the track did not lay down rubber. The bottom line was the preferred lane during practice, and unless the PJ1 is reapplied, it will likely remain a one-lane racetrack.

Brad Keselowski laughed when Larry McReynolds asked, “What do you think we got here?” during the practice broadcast on Prime. Keselowski ran 18 laps in practice, which was among the fewest of any driver.

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“Larry, you tell me,” Keselowski said. “I don’t know. We came here and tested a year and a half ago, and the tires wouldn’t go 25 [to] 30 laps. We thought we were really smart, and we came back in the spring race and were prepared for that, and that’s what it did. Then, after last year’s spring race, where the tires wore out, we came here with the [No.] 17 car and tested and the same thing happened, and we came back thinking, OK, be ready for tire wear in the summer race. The tires could have run 200 [to] 300 laps.

“We have no idea. We really don’t. I joke with people — one of the things that makes motorsports so much different to other sports is that it’s like a weekly science experiment and one small variable can change everything. And the tires, that’s not a small variable, that’s a big variable, and we’re seeing that in action.”

The temperature on Saturday was 45 degrees. On Sunday, the high is supposed to be 65 degrees.

Ryan Blaney is preparing for another tire management race.

“I think it’s going to be a lot of managing through the run,” Blaney said. “A lot of guys had cords after 35 laps, so that’s going to be really important. We’ll see if we have enough tires for the end of it.”

Christopher Bell said he would be surprised to see another spring 2024 race. However, Bell’s comments were made before the Cup Series cars were on track Saturday.

Kyle Busch, however, expected to see a repeat of last year before he got on track Saturday. Busch pointed to the weather as the factor.

“I think, being on the same tire,” of which Busch used air quotes, “Last spring and last fall, we saw the tire wear in the spring and not necessarily in the fall. I think track temp and all of that is going to have a lot to do with that. I feel like last spring race, I’m thinking we’re going to see another last spring race again this spring.”

Bowman scores Bristol Cup pole

Alex Bowman and Rick Stenhouse Jr. will lead the NASCAR Cup Series field to the green flag Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. Bowman won the pole in his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet with a lap of 128.675 mph (14.912s). It is the second pole for Bowman and …

Alex Bowman and Rick Stenhouse Jr. will lead the NASCAR Cup Series field to the green flag Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bowman won the pole in his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet with a lap of 128.675 mph (14.912s). It is the second pole for Bowman and his Hendrick Motorsports team, the first time he’s had multiple poles in a season. It is the second pole for Bowman at Bristol (he started on the pole in the fall) and the seventh of his Cup Series career.

“It feels really good,” Bowman said of his starting position, “but I definitely want to dedicate this to Jon Edwards. A huge loss for everybody at HMS and for his family and everybody that was close to him. He was probably my favorite person at HMS, one of the good guys for sure, and he’s definitely going to be missed a lot.

“So, I’m proud of our Ally [No.] 48 team and excited for a tire management race. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll see what we got.”

Edwards was Jeff Gordon’s long-time right-hand man and, most recently, served as Kyle Larson’s PR representative. He unexpectedly passed away earlier this week.

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Stenhouse, who was fastest in practice, qualified second. Stenhouse’s fastest lap was 128.563 mph.

Kyle Larson qualified third (128.511 mph), Denny Hamlin qualified fourth (128.460 mph), and Ryan Blaney qualified fifth (128.305 mph). Hamlin enters Sunday on a two-race winning streak and is the defending winner at Bristol.

Ty Gibbs qualified sixth (128.228 mph), Christopher Bell qualified seventh (128.185 mph), AJ Allmendinger qualified eighth (127.903 mph), and Carson Hocevar qualified ninth (127.758 mph). Justin Haley rounded out the top 10 qualifiers (127.665 mph).

Josh Berry qualified 11th, Chase Briscoe qualified 14th, and Kyle Busch qualified 15th. Busch laid down his fastest qualifying lap and then spun through Turn 4 and slid down the frontstretch on his second lap but did not hit anything.

Brad Keselowski qualified 16th. Jesse Love, for his Cup Series debut with Richard Childress Racing, qualified 19th. Chase Elliott qualified 20th.

Bubba Wallace qualified 22nd, William Byron qualified 26th, and Tyler Reddick qualified 27th. Byron is the Cup Series point leader.

Joey Logano qualified 38th of 39 drivers. Logano got sideways off Turn 2 on his qualifying lap and slapped the outside wall with the right rear.

“I was just having to push it hard trying to make a fast lap,” Logano said. “It turned pretty good, and I got a little bit down on that apron there, and it kind of shoved me up. I kind of got free, and then I got into the looser stuff and hit the wall. The last few times we’ve qualified here in the Next Gen car it’s been kind of sketchy, to say the least.”

UP NEXT: The Food City 500 at 3 p.m. ET Sunday.

Hamlin chasing two more career mileposts at Bristol

Denny Hamlin has the opportunity to accomplish a first Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway while adding another notch to his history with Joe Gibbs Racing. Hamlin enters the Food City 500 on a two-week winning streak. A third consecutive victory would …

Denny Hamlin has the opportunity to accomplish a first Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway while adding another notch to his history with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Hamlin enters the Food City 500 on a two-week winning streak. A third consecutive victory would be a first-time feat for him in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Furthermore, the next victory would be his 57th in the series. And that would make Hamlin the winningest driver in the history of Joe Gibbs Racing.

The 44-year-old has claimed nearly every major event in the NASCAR Cup Series. A victory in the Brickyard 400 and a Cup Series championship remain the two noticeable absences. Even still, Hamlin values the opportunity to add new and different accomplishments to his resume — but with a sense of keeping himself focusing on one thing at a time.

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“I try not to psych myself out too much about it because I think you sometimes put so much emphasis on those types of situations, and then you end up making silly mistakes,” Hamlin said Saturday. “I just try to be as even-keeled as I can. It’s a new week. It’s another great opportunity to go win a race. If it just so happens that it is three in a row, that would be awesome and certainly a very proud moment in my career, but it is not something that we set out to do each and every week.

“We don’t go into the season saying, all right, I want to win, at some point, three in a row this year. That is such a hard thing to do because all of the stars have to align perfectly, as we saw last week. They did align perfectly for us (at Darlington). It would be fantastic; some of the greats of our sport have done it, and I haven’t, and it just tells you how difficult it is.”

The victories at Martinsville Speedway (March 30) and Darlington Raceway (April 6) made it the first time Hamlin went back-to-back since 2015. Hamlin did so that year at Bristol and Atlanta.

Joe Gibbs Racing won three consecutive races earlier this season with Christopher Bell. No team has won three straight races in the same year with two different drivers.

Hamlin tied Kyle Busch with 56 victories driving a Gibbs car last weekend. The next victory makes Hamlin the winningest driver for the organization, which has field entries for the likes of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart, also former champions like Busch, as well as Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards, and Joey Logano.

The breakdown of wins by driver:

1. Kyle Busch & Denny Hamlin: 56

2. Tony Stewart: 33

3. Bobby Labonte: 21

4. Matt Kenseth: 15

5. Martin Truex Jr.: 15

6. Christopher Bell: 12

7. Carl Edwards: 5

8. Dale Jarrett: 2

9. Joey Logano: 2

10. Erik Jones: 2

“It certainly is special,” Hamlin said of the opportunity to be the all-time wins leader for Gibbs. “It’s such a historic organization with the championship drivers and whatnot. I’ve been there longer than anyone else so that increases my odds. There’s just been a lot of greats that have run through there, so it’s certainly a title I would like to have.”

Hamlin is the defending race winner at Bristol.

Stenhouse unloads strong and leads high-deg Bristol practice

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fastest in a Cup Series practice that resembled last year’s events at Bristol Motor Speedway as tires again show high wear. He paced the session at 128.082mph (14.981s). Stenhouse ran 32 laps. “We probably went a little fast …

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fastest in a Cup Series practice that resembled last year’s events at Bristol Motor Speedway as tires again show high wear.

He paced the session at 128.082mph (14.981s). Stenhouse ran 32 laps.

“We probably went a little fast early,” Stenhouse said. “The car felt really good. The boys brought me a really good SunnyD Camaro. It’s my favorite racetrack we come to, and I’m always smiling walking in the tunnel here, so it felt really, really good in practice. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like we’ve felt good in practice.

“We’ve had good race cars here … and managed our races OK, but that was the first time in a while that it felt like our car had been good in practice. Yeah, we had some cording there.”

The session ran in only 45 degree weather. It’s forecasted to be a high of 65 degrees on Sunday.

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Ryan Blaney was second fastest at 127.571mph and Austin Cindric was third at 127.140mph. Kyle Larson ran fourth at 126.737mph and Chase Elliott was fifth at 126.520mph.

Brad Keselowski was sixth at 126.496mph, Denny Hamlin seventh at 126.461mph, Kyle Busch eighth at 126.337mph, John Hunter Nemechek fastest at 126.187mph and Alex Bowman 10th at 126.121mph.

Hamlin is the defending Food City 500 winner.

“Everything looks the same, truthfully,” Hamlin said of the tire wear. “I wouldn’t have expected it, but certainly it looks like the formula is striking again. It’s going to be an interesting race to see how it all plays out. There are marbles up at the top; obviously the bottom is where you want to be, and the tires are wearing out. It should be fun.”

Jesse Love was 31st fastest in practice. Love is making his Cup Series debut with Richard Childress Racing.

William Byron, the points leader, was 35th fastest. Josh Berry was 36th and Ty Dillon was last.

There are 39 teams entered at Bristol. The three Open teams are Corey LaJoie (No. 01 for Rick Ware), Love (No. 33 for Childress), and Josh Bilicki (No. 66 for Carl Long).

Kyle Larson was fastest in the best 10 consecutive lap average. Larson outpaced Stenhouse, Noah Gragson, Cole Custer, and Justin Haley.

Keselowski not worried even after ‘horrendous’ finishes

Brad Keselowski is having a dismal start to the NASCAR Cup Series season-or so it seems to those on the outside looking in. The driver of the No. 6 Ford Mustang and co-owner of RFK Racing has a slightly different perspective. “We haven’t [had] a lot …

Brad Keselowski is having a dismal start to the NASCAR Cup Series season—or so it seems to those on the outside looking in.

The driver of the No. 6 Ford Mustang and co-owner of RFK Racing has a slightly different perspective.

“We haven’t [had] a lot of results lately, and that’s been terribly frustrating, but there’s a lot of bright spots,” Keselowski said this week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio during the program RFK Racing hosts on the channel. “We just haven’t found our potential. Our potential, I feel like, with the [No.] 6 team is higher than it’s been since I’ve been here at RFK. The cars are faster, I feel like we’ve found different chemistry, but we haven’t been able to put all the pieces together.

“And some of it has been misfortune, and other pieces have been totally in our control. We have to clean all that up and get results.”

The results tell one side of the story: Keselowski has no top-10 finishes through the first eight races. He’s earned just two top-20 finishes. Sitting 31st in the championship standings entering Bristol Motor Speedway (Sunday, 3 p.m. ET, FS1), his average finish is 26.1.

“What I like about our team — put my rose-colored glasses on — is that I think we have the opportunity to win more than we were able to over the last three years,” Keselowski said. “I think we have more speed, and I think executing that hasn’t come for us so far. But I think when it does click, we’ll be better off than we’ve been before.”

There have been weekends Keselowski and his team have run better than they’ve finished. The loop data statistics show that in six of eight races, Keselowski had an average running position during the race that was better than where he ultimately finished.

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Darlington Raceway was one that turned sideways after starting off with promise. Keselowski finished the first stage in sixth position after starting 20th, but early in the second stage, after a round of green flag pit stops, the lug nut came off the right rear of Keselowski’s car and sent him sideways through Turn 4. Fortunately, the wheel didn’t come off, but he had to limp to pit road.

“I’m sweating not being fast in qualifying; I need to find qualifying pace,” Keselowski did admit. “That probably bothers me more than anything because, generally, your execution improves, particularly in Cup, when your qualifying improves. It’s easier to execute when you start closer to the front.”

The metric doesn’t help his cause, especially with the qualifying draw, which can affect a driver’s qualifying results. The metric score is a weighted combination of the owner’s finish and the owner’s points position. It is easy for a team to be fighting from behind with a snowball of poor results going into the metric score, and trying to improve that bit by bit.

Keselowski firmly believes results are what the team is chasing. Fortunately, he’s been pleased with the speed and feel of his cars.

“I think with maturity, and certainly age is a part of that, you learn what things to worry about and what things not to worry about,” he said. “If we had a season where we had less speed, where we’re running 10th or 15th in the races, and we were getting fifth to 10th place finishes but weren’t fast enough to earn those, I would probably be more concerned than what I am now. We have faster cars but are getting horrendous finishes out of them because you know that execution is something you can find more easily than perhaps just overall potential and raw speed. I feel pretty confident in that.

“So I guess I’m maybe less worried than some people think I should be because I feel like this team can click at any minute, and when it does, it can rattle off wins, top fives, top 10s, and the consistency that we need to be a legitimate contender.”

Baldwin speaks to Ware’s character amid charter lawsuit

Tommy Baldwin gave a passionate character statement about Rick Ware as Legacy Motor Club is suing Ware’s organization over a charter sale gone awry. Baldwin, a former team owner himself, is a veteran of the NASCAR industry and current competition …

Tommy Baldwin gave a passionate character statement about Rick Ware as Legacy Motor Club is suing Ware’s organization over a charter sale gone awry.

Baldwin, a former team owner himself, is a veteran of the NASCAR industry and current competition director of Rick Ware Racing. He began working for the team in the spring of 2023.

“This goes back to just the way I feel our sport should be run, [which] is integrity,” Baldwin said on this week’s edition of Door Bumper Clear, a podcast he co-hosts on Dirty Mo Media. “The thing that hurts is that they have come out and said a lot of bad things about Rick Ware … and you can say all you want about what goes on at the track and on the track, of the things we’re trying to do, but I’m here to tell you Rick Ware is not any one of those things as a person, as an individual, as a father, as a family member, as what they’re making him out to be. It’s heartbreaking to have to see him go through all this.”

Baldwin then provided a personal anecdote about Ware. In the summer of 2023, Baldwin was diagnosed with cancer, which naturally took him away from racing for six to eight months. In the time Baldwin was not working, he said that Ware “took care of” him, checked on him, and paid him.

“That’s Rick Ware,” Baldwin said. “That’s the guy he is. He has worked his [rear] off to be in this position, to be able to sell a charter, and live the rest of his life the way his family needs to live. He deserves that.”

Legacy Motor Club filed its lawsuit against Ware on April 1. The suit alleges the two sides had a binding deal for Ware to sell one of his charters to Legacy Motor Club, allowing them to expand to three cars, but then Ware backed out of the deal.

The deal seemed to unravel when Ware discovered the terms of the contract had been changed. He believed the sale would be for the 2027 season, but Legacy Motor Club changed the terms for the 2026 season.

RWR has one charter running full-time with Cody Ware in the No. 51. The second charter was leased to RFK Racing, which is only for this year. A team cannot lease the same charter for more than one season.

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In its lawsuit, much of which has been heavily redacted, Legacy said of Ware, “Strapped for cash and unable to compete at Cup Series level by its own admission, RWR needed to sell one of its two Charters. So, on the morning of January 6, 2025, Legacy’s CEO Calvin ‘Cal’ Wells III met with RWR’s representatives – Rick Ware and his broker T.J. Puchyr – to strike a deal. They did. On March 3, 2025, Legacy and RWR executed a Charter Purchase Agreement.”

Baldwin is familiar with the sale of a charter. He sold his charter to Leavine Family Racing and chose for Tommy Baldwin Racing not to run full-time after the 2016 season. The organization ran its last Cup Series race in 2020.

“Shame on me for not having the balls [Ware] did, as much as he has, not waiting to sell mine,” Baldwin said. “I just couldn’t deal with it anymore; I couldn’t deal with the political mess, the people, with people screwing me all the time. I just couldn’t deal with it. This guy has survived all that, and I don’t know how he’s done it. And in the meantime, he’s in the back doing his business, what he needs to be doing, to set himself up and his family to live the rest of their lives comfortably.

“That’s his prerogative. He deserves that. He put himself in that position. I will fight for Rick Ware as much as I’ll fight for anybody right now because that is not Rick Ware.”

Baldwin also defended the race team and its objectives. Ware faced criticism in the past for the performance of his cars and for putting his son on the track. However, Baldwin noted that Ware spent millions of his own money to field Justin Haley in 2024 because there wasn’t enough funding for a full season, and then he decided to pivot.

As Baldwin explained, “It’s gotten to the point where Rick was like, ‘Look, if I’m going to spend my own money, I’m going to spend it on my son. I’m not going to spend any more on anybody else’s career,’ and that was a major decision that he made. He got Robby [Benton] and me together and said, ‘This is my decision, and you guys are going to make it work because this is what I want.’ All right, that’s what we’re going to do.”

The team is 36th in the point standings, but Baldwin said the younger Ware is doing what he needs to on the racetrack to learn and stay out of the leader’s way. He feels if the right amount of funding were plugged into the team, and with Ware’s development, they could develop into a top-15 contender.

“We have a really good race team,” Baldwin said.