Cody Ware Eyeing Opportunity in Jack Link’s 500
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 24, 2025) – Despite the 33-degree banking in its turns and a frontstretch banked at 16.5 degrees, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway provides a level playing field for NASCAR Cup Series drivers. Horsepower, aerodynamics and handling all still matter at the 2.66-mile oval, but the draft is the great equalizer.
Just as novelist Rudyard Kipling described in The Jungle Book, “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack,” drivers can’t outrun the pack on their own at Talladega. They have to rely on others, specifically the gaggle of cars around them and their collective aerodynamics, to gain speed. By tucking in tightly behind one another, drivers reduce the amount of air resistance on their cars. It’s a high-speed chess match, where side drafting, bump drafting and strategic line selection determines who moves forward and who gets shuffled back.
With the field running nose-to-tail and oftentimes three-wide, timing and teamwork are crucial, especially in the closing laps when a well-executed move in the draft can mean the difference between winning and wrecking.
“It takes talent, it takes skill and it takes consistency to run well at Talladega, and it’s a chance for challenger teams like ours to be competitive and fight for a win,” said Cory Ware, driver of the No. 51 Arby’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Rick Ware Racing.
Ware sees opportunity in the Jack Link’s 500 Sunday at Talladega. There have been nine different winners in the last nine NASCAR Cup Series races at the track. It’s the longest streak of races without a repeat winner in Talladega’s 60-history. Additionally, Talladega has produced 12 different first-time winners. Ware would like to be the 13th.
Two months ago in the season-opening Daytona 500 at Talladega’s sister track – Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway – Ware was eyeing that first win and had a potential top-five result in sight, but less than a mile from the finish line, he was collected in a last-lap accident that left him 25th.
“We’ve typically had good speed at the superspeedways,” Ware said. “The Daytona 500 didn’t play out quite how we wanted it to, but we were in contention when it mattered. So we’re keeping our same approach at superspeedways, which is putting ourselves in contention with a couple of laps to go. One of these days, we’re going to be able to capitalize.”
Hindsight is 20/20, and in the time since the checkered flag dropped at Daytona, Ware has analyzed the moments that had him in sixth place entering the final turn of the final lap of the Great American Race.
“When you’re in that top-10, top-five bubble, lane choice has a lot to do with who you’re going to work with and who’s going to be safe versus potentially unsafe,” Ware said. “Looking back at that race, on the last lap coming down the backstretch, William Byron, the winner, was on my outside. If we were in a little bit different of a spot, if we were on the outside lane versus the inside lane, we could’ve been in contention for the win.
“So it’s not just a matter of where we want to be and where our car likes to handle better versus the top or bottom, it’s also about who we’re racing with and who we’re working with to get to the checkered flag. It’s important because, whether you’re seventh or eighth on the inside lane or the outside lane, that was the difference between winning the race and ending up on a wrecker. It’s something I’ll have in the back of my mind this Sunday at Talladega.”
While Daytona and Talladega are both superspeedways and are often talked about in the same breath, there are differences.
“You have a lot more room at Talladega, so the aggression level starts off a lot higher there because you can go three-wide pretty easily. Even four-wide is doable,” Ware said. “Anytime you’re four-wide at Daytona, you’re on pins and needles. At Talladega, you can run four-wide simply because there’s room for it, but that also means there are some bold moves happening. I feel like the ‘Big One’ tends to happen a little bit earlier at Talladega compared to Daytona.”
The Big One is the habitual multicar accident that dashes any hope of victory, and leaves drivers with just a handful of points and teams with a garage full of mangled parts. There are two strategies drivers use to avoid it – get up front and stay up front, or hang at the back and bide your time until the last 30 laps.
“I think it all comes down to what the tone of the race is,” said Ware about which strategy he will employ on Sunday. “Once the green flag drops, we want to make sure we’ve got a good racecar, so I’d like to get up to the front and lead some laps like we did last fall at Talladega. Once we know we’ve got a good piece, we kind of go into defense mode. We still want to race hard and get some stage points, but the most important thing is to be there at the end.”
In Ware’s nine career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Talladega, only once has his race ended early. His best result came last October when he finished 12th.
“When you’re patient and hang out at the back of the pack, you’re able to see some tells of how the race will play out,” Ware said. “You can see what drivers are making aggressive moves, who’s pushing the envelope, who’s making clean passes and clean bumps versus who is jacking people up and causing issues. So you’re able to take some mental notes to prepare for those last laps.
“You want to be working with the right guys and in a good position. You don’t want to be in front of somebody who’s going to give you a bad bump and cause the ‘Big One.’ Once you get in position to race, you have a solid plan to try and execute onto the checkered flag.”
The Jack Link’s 500 goes green at 2 p.m. CDT/3 p.m. EDT with live coverage 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).
