JUSTIN HALEY | CODY WARE
Indianapolis Advance
Event Overview
● Event: Brickyard 400 (Round 22 of 36)
● Time/Date: 2:30 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 21
● Location: Indianapolis Motor Speedway
● Layout: 2.5-mile rectangular oval
● Laps/Miles: 160 laps/400 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 50 laps / Stage 2: 50 laps / Final Stage: 60 laps
● TV/Radio: NBC / IMS Radio / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Justin Haley, Driver of the No. 51 Fraternal Order of Eagles Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Ninety-seven miles north of Indianapolis Motor Speedway sits the town of Winamac, Indiana. The seat of Pulaski County boasts a population of just over 2,300 that lives in a 1.36-square-mile area. It’s where Rick Ware Racing (RWR) driver Justin Haley grew up and started his racing career. At just 9 years old, Haley began racing quarter midgets at Kokomo (Ind.) Speedway. By 2011, he was traveling across the Midwest, racing in the CRA Late Model Series at tracks like Toledo (Ohio) Speedway and Winchester (Ind.) Speedway.
● Haley’s first break came in 2014 when he was given the chance to run a six-race stint in the ARCA Menards Series for Venturini Motorsports. He earned his first pole in his second start, at Elko (New Market, Minnesota) Speedway, and picked up his first top-five finish. Overall, he finished with four top-10s in his limited first season. He also made three starts that year in the ARCA Menards Series East (formerly K&N Pro Series East), earning a seventh-place finish at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway. Haley made the move to the East Series fulltime in 2015 and, in 2016, was name the East Series champion with two wins, 13 top-fives and 14 top-10s in 14 races.
● At 18 years old, Haley’s next move was a fulltime ride in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He had already made six starts in a truck and earned a top-10 finish at Phoenix Raceway. In his first season with GMS Racing, Haley earned three top-fives and 12 top-10 finishes, in addition to his first pole in the Truck Series, earned in October 2017 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Haley returned to the team in 2018, won three races and made it to the Championship Four in the playoffs. He finished his final full Truck Series season third in the championship with 18 top-10 finishes over 23 races.
● Just 10 years into his racing career, Haley had already made it to the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He joined Kaulig Racing fulltime in 2019, and in his five years and 104 starts in its Xfinity Series program, he earned four wins, 24 top-fives and 69 top-10 finishes. Haley also made his Cup Series debut that year and become the second-youngest Cup Series winner in Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway history when he took home the win in the July 2019 Coke Zero Sugar 400. Three years later, Haley helped Kaulig launch its fulltime Cup Series program and earned seven top-fives and 10 top-10s for the team in two seasons.
● Haley announced in June 2023 that he would join RWR fulltime for the 2024 season. In just 21 races with the team this season, he has earned two top-10 finishes – ninth-place results at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. Prior to Haley joining RWR, the team had earned eight top-10s across 590 starts. Haley has also bettered or equaled the team’s best finish at nine different tracks thus far.
● The Fraternal Order of Eagles driver is set to make his first Cup Series start on the Indianapolis oval this Sunday. Haley has one previous start on the oval, which resulted in a fifth-place finish in the 2019 Xfinity Series race. The following year at the iconic Speedway, NASCAR switched to its infield road-course layout, on which Haley finished second to fellow Indiana native Chase Briscoe to mark the first time Hoosiers finished one-two at Indy. He also owns three Cup Series starts on the Indy road-course layout, earning a best finish of eighth in 2021.
Cody Ware, Driver of the No. 15 AFT Peoria Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Cody Ware will also make his first start on the Indianapolis oval after two starts on the road course layout, on which his best finish was a 24th-place effort earned in 2022.
● The No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse will feature the logo for the next round of the American Flat Track (AFT) series, set to take place at Peoria (Ill.) Motorcycle Club on July 28. RWR competes in AFT with Singles riders Kody Kopp and Shayna Texter-Bauman, and Mission SuperTwins rider Briar Bauman. Nineteen-year-old Kopp is the two-time defending series champion who has already claimed five wins and nine podiums through the first 10 events of the season. He currently holds a 32-point advantage in the championship standings. Earlier this season, Kopp surpassed Texter-Bauman’s record as the winningest rider in Singles history. In Mission SuperTwins, Bauman is fourth in the standings with two podiums, including a win at Venture Short Track in Chico, California. The 25-year-old rider is looking to claim his third SuperTwins title.
● The Brickyard 400 marks Ware’s fourth start of the season. The 28-year-old driver was on track for his best finish of the season last weekend at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway when his No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse was struck with debris during a multicar accident on lap 128 while running in the top-25. Ware’s team worked quickly to repair a hole in the radiator, and he returned to the track to finish the race and secure a 26th-place finish.
Rick Ware Racing Notes
● The NHRA Drag Racing Series visits Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington, for this weekend’s Northwest Nationals. RWR’s Clay Millican looks for his first win and fifth semifinal appearance of the season. The schedule kicks off with Friday qualifying under the lights and continues with final eliminations Sunday.
● Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age six 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 seat and into fulltime team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that fields two fulltime entries in the 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), where RWR won the 2022 SX2 championship with rider Shane McElrath.
Justin Haley, Driver Q&A
You raced on the Indianapolis oval in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but being an Indiana native, have you been hoping for a chance to race on the oval in the NASCAR Cup Series?
“Yeah. I’m excited. It’s definitely going to be different than what we experience at some other places. It’s a fast track and obviously different than anything else we run. I spent a lot of time at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a lot of time racing late models and street stocks and stuff at Lucas Oil (Raceway) just down the road. I’ve always appreciated the Brickyard layout, this really big, flat track with long straightaways. It’s something that means a lot to any driver but especially those of us from Indiana. It’s a big deal to make it to the Cup Series. It’s not easy to do. But then to get to come back to Indiana and run the Brickyard is pretty cool. The track is historic and the race itself is so iconic. I mean, we have the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400. You know it’s big when there’s no other name needed.”
Do you have a favorite childhood memory of Indianapolis?
“My grandpa was involved in motorsports, and he sponsored a car owned by Sam Schmidt in the Indy 500. Obviously, it’s not NASCAR, but that is one of the experiences when I think of Indianapolis that always stands out. Going there with my family and seeing my grandpa’s company on one of the cars.”
Cody Ware, Driver Q&A
NASCAR returns to the Indianapolis oval for the first time since 2020. Are you excited to be on the original layout?
“I’m super excited to be racing on the oval this weekend at Indy. I remember my first time with my dad there was back when we were in the Xfinity Series in 2012 with Jeffrey Earnhardt driving. I’ve always wanted to race the Brickyard and be there in a stock car. I’m just super stoked to get away from the road course this year, back on the Brickyard for the 400 and really excited to see how these Next Gen cars adapt to this race.”
What does it mean for a driver to be able to compete in the Brickyard 400?
“Being able to race at a place like Indianapolis is just a really awesome experience as a driver. There’s so much history there, over 100-plus years of racing between IndyCar, NASCAR, and Formula One, with the Brickyard 400 being one of the crown jewels in NASCAR for a long time, and now it’s coming back this year. So, to be able to go to one of the meccas of racing and be there in a Cup car is definitely an honor. Anytime you have a chance to race at Indy, it is definitely a really cool experience.”
