RICK WARE RACING
Food City 500
Date: April 12, 2026
Event: Food City 500 (Round 8 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Cup Series
Location: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway (.533-mile concrete oval)
Format: 500 laps, broken into three stages (125 laps/125 laps/250 laps)
Note: Race extended five laps past its scheduled 500-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
Race Winner: Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
RWR Finish:
● Cody Ware (Started 36th, Finished 31st / Running, completed 500 of 505 laps)
RWR Points:
● Cody Ware (35th with 64 points)
RWR Notes:
● This was Ware’s milestone 150th career NASCAR Cup Series start, and all have come with RWR.
Race Notes:
● Ty Gibbs won the Food City 500 to score his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory. His margin over second-place Ryan Blaney was .055 of a second.
● There were nine caution periods for a total of 72 laps.
● Only 16 of the 37 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Tyler Reddick remains the championship leader after Bristol with a 62-point advantage over second-place Blaney.
Sound Bites:
“We fired off pretty disconnected. We weren’t terrible. Our long-run pace was good all day long. We just had to work on getting the car firing off better, and I felt like the team did a really good job, not just throwing random changes at it, but making good adjustments, trying things that we know have worked in the past. We fought all day for 500 laps to try to better our Costa Oil Chevrolet. We did that. Our long-run pace there on that last, long green-flag run was really stout, and what we needed was the race to go green for the last 25 laps but, unfortunately, that’s not how it played out. So, just another weekend where we needed a little bit of luck to go our way, but proud of the team and looking forward to Kansas.” – Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Costa Oil 10-Minute Oil Change Chevrolet
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the AdventHealth 400 on Sunday, April 19, at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FOX and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
