MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Feb. 23, 2026) – The unofficial slogan is “Keep Austin Weird,” an acknowledgement of the Texas city’s eclectic style whose inhabitants take pride in zigging while others zag.
That Austin is also home to the first road-course race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule fits with the town’s mantra. The predominantly oval racing series switches things up at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) and keeps Austin “wheeled” as drivers wrestle their 3,400-pound stock cars around the track’s 2.4-mile, 20-turn layout in Sunday’s DuraMax Grand Prix powered by RelaDyne.
And unlike Formula 1, the globe-trotting open-wheel series for which COTA was purposely built for in 2012, you won’t hear talk of track limits or avoidable contact or anything being referred to stewards for review. No, Cup Series drivers prefer to handle things on the racetrack, and at COTA, justice is served with a slam of the bumper and a wheel to the door.
“NASCAR is a contact sport on road courses,” said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Parts Plus/Costa Oil 10-Minute Oil Change Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing (RWR). “We go into it with a have-at-it mentality, to where if there’s a racing surface that you can plant four tires on, you do it. Beating and banging is expected. It’s very different from the etiquette and thought process behind road racing anywhere else.”
Ware knows. He won the 2019-2020 LMP2 championship in the Asian Le Mans Series with co-driver Gustas Grinbergas, and in a prelude to that title, Ware was the 2014 Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Rookie of the Year. In January 2024 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Ware piloted a Ligier JS P320 to a podium finish in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge LMP3 class. He has also competed in Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup and the NTT IndyCar Series.
“If you go anywhere else and you even breathe on someone the wrong way, you’re penalized and get a drive-thru penalty,” Ware said. “In other series, there are so many rules and regulations on how to pass and when to pass and when you have to let somebody go, you feel like you’re not able to race at your full capacity.”
Full capacity is the name of the game in NASCAR. It’s expected of the drivers, and it’s the drivers’ expectation of their racecars.
“Our cars can take the hits, they can take the rubbing, they can take the racing. They’re very durable. Our races have become more of a left-and-right-turn short-track race than a road-course race,” Ware said.
“Sportscars are very fragile compared to stock cars. If you’re in a dedicated sportscar series, you give someone a donut, that can rip off a body panel, or if you hit them too hard from behind, their wing falls off.”
The no-holds-barred nature of Cup Series road-course racing has made for compelling viewing, be it in person or on TV.
“NASCAR racing on road courses right now is some of the best it’s ever been. We have a lot of parity from first to last,” Ware said. “Whether we’re racing in the dry or racing in wet conditions, everyone’s gotten really good at road racing, so we put on a great race.”
COTA delivers great racing from the outset, as its most drama-filled corner is turn one. That’s where the 38-car field attempts to funnel itself through an ultra-tight left-hander after scaling a 133-foot hill with a 17 percent gradient.
“The aggression level of the guys you have in front of you and behind you, it’s almost similar to a speedway race,” said Ware about tackling turn one at the start and on subsequent restarts. “It’s about knowing who you can work with to try to get some track position on those restarts versus not wanting to be around someone that might approach turn one like a wrecking ball.”
After turn one, the remaining 19 corners remain on brand for Austin.
“COTA takes a blend of everything,” Ware said. “It’s finesse and perfection, but also ruggedness and manhandling where you’re throwing the car around in different directions.”
Ware and his Cup Series counterparts begin navigating COTA’s confines on Saturday at 9 a.m. CST/10 a.m. EST for a one-hour practice before qualifying at 10:10 a.m. CST/11:10 a.m. EST. Prime Video and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide live coverage of both. Sunday’s DuraMax Grand Prix powered by RelaDyne goes green at 2:30 p.m. CST/3:30 p.m. EST with live, flag-to-flag coverage delivered 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.
