MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Jan. 28, 2025) – In theory, the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray provides a level playing field for NASCAR Cup Series drivers and teams. NASCAR’s premier series hasn’t competed at the quarter-mile, asphalt oval in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, since the Nixon administration, so there is no past data to benchmark. Instead, it’s an educated guess thanks to the brave new world of simulation.
But it’s not computers that will be driving these 3,400-pound racecars with 670 horsepower this weekend at Bowman Gray. It’s people, and at Rick Ware Racing (RWR), its driver lineup of Tim Brown and Cody Ware is the most experienced at the country’s longest-running weekly racetrack.
Brown is the all-time winningest driver at Bowman Gray with 101 victories. The 53-year-old from Yadkinville, North Carolina, competes in the track’s Tour Type Modified division, where he has set just about every record imaginable. Beyond having the most wins, he has the most poles (146), the most championships (12), and he owns the fastest lap ever recorded at Bowman Gray (12.965 seconds on April 30, 2016).
Ware also brings past experience to Bowman Gray. The 29-year-old from nearby Greensboro, North Carolina, spent 2013-2014 running Modifieds prepared by Brown and his brother, Ben.
Tying this on-track experience together with the current-generation Cup car is Brown, who works fulltime at RWR as the team’s suspension and drivetrain specialist. He is the rare driver who will help build the car he will race in the Clash.
“I’ve been involved in Cup racing for almost 35 years now, and I don’t know that you’ll find a Cup driver who actually gets to build his own Cup car from the ground up, chassis dyno it, and then go race it,” said Brown, whose first career Cup Series start will come via the Clash. “These guys that work here at RWR, they’re my buddies and they’re all racers, and we get to do this as a group effort.”
For Ware, Brown’s presence in the shop and as a teammate at Bowman Gray is an incredible asset.
“Tim has been a longtime family friend, not just to me, but my father, as well. Tim actually made his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut for my dad at Martinsville way back in 2009. And then about 12 years ago, I got the chance to race with Tim and Ben Brown, his brother, at Bowman Gray,” Ware said.
“So to be able to work and race with Tim over the last 10 years, where he’s also an employee at Rick Ware Racing and is in the shop every day building our racecars, I really couldn’t ask for a better teammate going into the first Cup race at Bowman Gray in 50-something years. To be able to lean on a 12-time champion and learn from his success, a guy familiar with the intensity of the place and what it takes to not only run up front, but to stay up front and not let other people’s aggression put you at the back of the pack, is crucial.”
Brown will build on his unparalleled level of experience at Bowman Gray when he drives his Modified in the undercard Cook Out Madhouse Classic on Saturday before the headlining Clash on Sunday.
“That time in the Modified will be very helpful,” Brown said. “NASCAR has done some updates to the stadium with soft walls and things like that. It’s changed the line of the racetrack. It’s made it smaller. The line we’ve typically run, you’re not able to run anymore. Just getting some track time before we climb in the Cup car will be very helpful.”
That being said, the Modified and the Cup car are two very different racecars.
“It’s one thing to make laps there in a Modified, but I think the Cup car is going to be a whole other animal because we’ve seen how difficult it has been over the last few years to get that car to turn through such a tight racetrack, like last year’s Clash at the L.A. Coliseum,” Ware said.
Ware and Brown will benefit from there being no single-lap qualifying. Instead, each driver’s fastest lap from their final practice session will determine their starting spot in their heat race. This way, they have multiple opportunities to set a fast lap. With the top-five from each of the four heat races advancing to the Clash, starting up front is crucial.
“Having all of final practice to set a fast time gives us a better chance to start up front in our heat race and, hopefully, not have to go through the Last Chance Qualifier, where only the top two transfer,” Ware said. “The first year we ran the Clash, I was top 10 or 11 in final practice and then had a really rough qualifying session where I struggled to get heat in the tires, and I think that will again be an issue at Bowman Gray because we expect it to be cold. So that, alongside the fact that I missed the first Clash by just one spot in the LCQ, I feel like having a better starting position in the heat race will give me a much better shot to get that last little push I need to comfortably lock into the Clash. Not only would that be great for myself as I head back into another season of fulltime competition, but also for Tim. He has just as much of a shot to make it into the main event as I do.”
Ware and Brown progressing to the Clash would be another example of the overall progress RWR has made these last few seasons.
“Here at RWR, we’ve turned a corner from being just a race team that shows up every week to being a team that wants to contend and race in the top-15 weekly. That’s huge for Rick and Lisa Ware and the whole Ware family. It’s also huge for all the people who work here,” Brown said.
“We had some really solid runs last year with Justin Haley, and we showed speed with Kaz Grala and Corey LaJoie, too. That shows you Rick’s doing the right thing, and all the people at RWR are doing the right thing. We’re all pulling the rope in the same direction, and it’s showing on the racetrack. It’s a really, really cool place to work and I couldn’t be more blessed to be here.”
The Clash weekend begins at 1:30 p.m. EST on Saturday with the Cook Out Madhouse Classic, the 125-lap Modified race where Brown will race his signature orange and blue No. 83 machine. After the checkered flag drops on the Madhouse Classic, on-track activity for the Cup Series begins with practice at 6 p.m. before the heat races start at 8:30 p.m. FloRacing will stream the Madhouse Classic while FS1 will broadcast Cup action. Sunday’s 75-lap Last Chance Qualifying (LCQ) race goes green at 6 p.m. to set the final lineup for the 200-lap Cook Out Clash. FOX will broadcast the LCQ, transition to its NASCAR RaceDay studio show at 7:30 p.m., and then cover the Clash, which goes green at 8 p.m. SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will also provide live coverage throughout the event.
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).
