MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 10, 2025) – It is a tale of two strategies for Rick Ware Racing (RWR) as the NASCAR Cup Series organization readies for the Daytona 500 this Sunday at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. RWR is bringing two cars to Daytona – the No. 01 DuraMAX/Take 5 Oil Change® Ford Mustang Dark Horse for driver Corey LaJoie and the No. 51 Jacob Construction/Parts Plus/Pronto Auto Service Center Ford Mustang Dark Horse for driver Cody Ware. The No. 51 is one of the 36 chartered teams, granting Ware a guaranteed starting spot in the Great American Race. The No. 01 is an open entry, meaning LaJoie must secure one of the four available spots in the 40-car field for non-chartered teams. LaJoie will have company in his pursuit. He is among nine drivers campaigning an open car and vying for one of those cherished four spots in the 67th Daytona 500. Oh, and a few of the other names in open cars: just seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and Hall of Famer Jimmie Johnson, 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion and future Hall of Famer Martin Truex Jr., the reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier, who will drive a car fielded by Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., and four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves. “I don’t anticipate being one of the two cars that locks it in on time due to some of the really solid OEM-backed cars, specifically Dale Junior’s car and Martin Truex’s car,” LaJoie said. “I anticipate those guys being pretty fast in their single-car runs. So we’re going to be focused on getting our car to drive well in the draft, to be able to take a push well, and I think at the end of the day, we’ve got to make sure the things we do control – entering pit road under green, communicating well on pit road, maintaining track position – when it all shakes out, those are the things we need to execute well. Everything else is kind of up to chance.” Ah yes, chance. The most volatile variable at Daytona, where lines of stock cars create 200 mph freight trains that run two- and three-wide, which quickly and often turn these multimillion dollar machines into hundreds of dollars of recycling. “There’s a time where you reach the point of no return, where everyone is going to get squirrely. And then once the runs come harder and the pushes come more aggressively, and if it’s less than 25 to go, you’re not bailing, you’re just tightening the belts and hoping that everybody kind of keeps their car straight and you don’t get caught up in the wreck,” LaJoie said. That kind of racing will be present well before the Daytona 500. LaJoie will have to earn his Daytona 500 spot in the Duel on Thursday night, the twin 150-mile qualifying races that set the rest of the Daytona 500 field. He will need to be the top-finishing open car in his Duel in order to race on Sunday. “In the Duel, it’s going to be straightforward. Get track position, keep track position, and make sure you beat everybody you can beat,” LaJoie said. LaJoie’s RWR teammate, Ware, gets to eschew the stress of making the Daytona 500. Instead, he can use Wednesday’s practice and qualifying sessions, in addition to Thursday’s Duel, to fine-tune his racecar for Sunday. “Given our performance and how we’ve gotten a lot more competitive over the last few years at Daytona, there’s definitely the urge to want to go racing in the Duel,” said Ware, who scored a career-best fourth place finish in his prior race at Daytona last August. “But the practicality of racing in the Duel isn’t there. Our primary car is the primary for a reason – it’s our best car. Our backup isn’t going to be a one-to-one copy of the primary. The risk versus reward isn’t there. Do we really care if we start 28th instead of 15th in the Daytona 500? The answer is no. We’re not going to be trying to go to the front and be aggressive at the drop of the green. It’s about being there at the end.” Getting to the end is something both Ware and LaJoie have done well at Daytona. LaJoie finished fourth in last year’s Daytona 500, tying his career-best result. He has five top-10 finishes at Daytona, including two in his last three NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 2.5-mile oval. “A lot is in your hands and a lot is out of your hands. It’s a little bit on you to make your own luck.” LaJoie said. “When I was at Talladega last year, we did everything right, then we get piled up in the crash. So I don’t know, I feel like if it’s meant to be, it’s going to work out. But I also don’t think it’s coincidence that you see the same guys working their way toward the front, making the right decisions at the right time to be in contention to win, or to run top-10. “I feel like I’ve kind of evolved into one of those guys that makes our way toward the front of the race when the pay window opens, so hopefully it bounces into our favor this week.” Ware, who has two top-10s in his last three Daytona starts, validates LaJoie’s words. “Corey is definitely a very accomplished superspeedway racer. He’s gotten a lot of fantastic results at Daytona and Talladega, so he knows how to run his race,” Ware said. “Hopefully, we can get lucky enough to be in the same Duel and I can help him get to the front.” With so many drivers going for so few spots, the Duel is bound to be dicey. “At the end of the day, the last lap’s the only one that matters,” LaJoie said. “There’s certainly going to be some different strategies – guys who want to get track position early and try to hold that throughout the course of the race, and there’ll be guys on a similar speedway strategy to what we’ve seen of late where they’re doing a little bit of fuel conservation trying to get the difference on the pit stop. “So just seeing where we are and where we stack up in terms of track position, that’ll probably dictate how we play it. If there’s an opportunity to go get some track position, we’ll go get it, but if not, then we’ll execute the plan and we’ll see where we shake out at the end. “I feel good about it with the caliber of cars RWR has taken to the racetrack these last couple of years. They’ve had some good runs, and I’ve known how to get it done at Daytona, too. I feel like it’s going to be a good match, and everybody knows what it takes.” Ware wants to be in LaJoie’s Duel to offer as much help as possible, but which Duel each driver is in won’t be known until after time trials on Wednesday night. “Obviously, we’re going to be trying to improve our qualifying efforts from years past, so if we can do that consecutively and both have a good spot, then hopefully we get lucky enough to be in the same Duel,” Ware said. “There’s going to be a desire to help Corey, but we’ve also got to be smart. With this year’s Daytona 500 having the most open cars in recent history, I think both Duels are going to be the most chaotic we’ve seen in the last four or five years.” The road to the Daytona 500 begins with time trials at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday with live coverage on FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Only the top-two positions will be locked into the Great American Race. The rest of the field will earn their respective starting positions in the Duel, which gets underway at 7 p.m. on Thursday with live coverage on FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Daytona Speedweek then culminates with the 67th Daytona 500 at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.  About Rick Ware Racing:Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age 6 when the third-generation racer began his driving career and has since spanned four wheels and two wheels on both asphalt and dirt. Competing in the SCCA Trans Am Series and other road-racing divisions led Ware to NASCAR in the early 1980s, where he finished third in his NASCAR debut – the 1983 Warner W. Hodgdon 300 NASCAR Grand American race at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. More than a decade later, injuries would force Ware out of the driver’s seat and into full-time team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with his wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes full-time in the elite NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning successful teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track and FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX). -RWR- |
