Cody Ware Brings Super.com Chevy to NASCAR’s Biggest Superspeedway
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 21, 2026) – When your best career finish has come at a superspeedway and you’ve led laps in the last three superspeedway races, the potential a superspeedway offers is palpable.
Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Super.com Chevrolet, can feel it. It’s not hyperbole. It’s pragmatic.
“It’s a place where we have a really good shot to win a race. It boils down to that,” Ware said.
There are two superspeedways on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule – the 2.5-mile Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and the bigger, 2.66-mile Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Even with the high banks featured at both venues containing cars traveling at nearly 200 mph, these tracks provide a level playing field. Horsepower, aerodynamics and handling all still matter, but the draft is the great equalizer.
The draft creates pack racing, and drivers can’t outrun the pack on their own. 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 determine who moves forward and who gets shuffled back.
“Every time we go to Talladega and Daytona, we inch that much closer to really being in contention for the win,” said Ware, who earned his career-best finish of fourth in the 2024 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona. “The last couple of races, the end result didn’t reflect our work. Leading laps and being up front, that’s become more consistent each time we’ve been out on track. It’s momentum, and it’s grown my confidence and grown the team’s confidence.”
Two months after the season-opening Daytona 500 brought pack racing to a nationwide TV audience of 7.489 million, pack racing is back this Sunday at Talladega with the Jack Link’s 500. For Ware, it means being back in contention to win.
“It takes talent, it takes skill, and it takes consistency to run well at Talladega. It’s a chance for challenger teams like ours to be competitive and fight for a win,” Ware said.
There have been 11 different winners in the last 11 NASCAR Cup Series races at Talladega. It’s the longest streak of races without a repeat winner in the track’s 61-year history. Additionally, Talladega has produced 12 different first-time winners. Ware would like to be the 13th.
“We’ve focused a lot of time and energy on our superspeedway program,” Ware said. “Being an alliance partner with RCR (Richard Childress Racing) and having those ECR engines has really been an asset. Kyle Busch showed how fast these Chevrolets are at the superspeedways when he won the pole for the Daytona 500. It’s definitely moved the needle for us. We’ve got a lot of Chevrolet teammates, which means good people to work with and draft with throughout the race. All those things matter when it comes to putting it together on Sunday.”
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 garages 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 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. 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.”
Getting to the end of the race on Sunday means navigating a new wrinkle to the race’s format.
Stage racing remains, but instead of the first stage being short, it will be the longest of the race (98 laps). The final two stages will be 45 laps apiece. For comparison, the typical stage lengths for Talladega have been 60 laps, 60 laps and 68 laps. This NASCAR update was made to reduce fuel savings and promote unbridled, foot-to-the-floor power, the way the internal combustion gods intended.
“We’re getting the fuel-mileage racing out of the way early so for those last 100 laps, we’re hammer down and putting on a show,” Ware said. “Once the first stage is over, you’re not going to see much riding around. There’s too much at stake. Every position matters – for stage points and for the win.”
The Jack Link’s 500 goes green at 2 p.m. CDT/3 p.m. EDT on Sunday 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. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware transitioned out of the driver’s seat and into fulltime team ownership. He has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes full-time in the elite NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning winning teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track (AFT), FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) and zMAX CARS Tour.
