MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Oct. 16, 2026) – When the word “devil” is spoken in and around Phoenix, it’s usually in reference to the Arizona State University Sun Devils – except when the NASCAR Cup Series comes to town. That’s because at Phoenix Raceway, the devil is in the details, at least when it comes to making a fast lap around the 1-mile desert oval.
Phoenix is a flat and fast racetrack. Pairing mechanical balance with a car’s aerodynamics is what allows a driver to feel secure when wheeling his racecar through the scant 9 degrees of banking in turns one and two and the 11 degrees of banking in turns three and four.
“Phoenix has always been a difficult racetrack,” said Cody Ware, driver of the No. 51 Rocket Doctor Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing ahead of Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500k. “It’s not really a short track because it’s so wide and so fast. It kind of blends the lines of an intermediate, downforce-style track into a short track.
“Like a short track, we’re doing a lot of shifting at Phoenix, and there are different ways to approach the corners in regard to how many times you’re shifting and where you’re shifting.”
Where does that shifting happen and how are those corners approached? Ware explains.
“Firing off coming to the start-finish line, it’s pretty interesting,” Ware said. “Whether it’s in qualifying or on restarts, we basically use a lot of the non-racing surface. We cut the track and make it super short. That transition from the banking to the flat is really aggressive, so you do heat up your car a little bit when you do that during the race, but it’s important for qualifying.
“And then as you’re going into turn one, you’re grabbing fifth gear because you’ve downshifted to fourth coming to the start-finish line, so you’re hard on the brakes. One of the heaviest braking zones in NASCAR is at Phoenix. You’re really modulating the throttle because tire wear happens aggressively, it’s really quick and early in (turns) one and two at Phoenix.
“You’re wringing out fourth gear, grabbing fifth gear for a little bit, and as tire wear falls off down the backstretch, you might just keep it in fifth and not use up your tires as much.
“You’re back down to fourth gear for turns three and four. And then, about the time you get past the start-finish line, you’re grabbing back to fifth gear. So, a good amount of shifting. Not quite as much as, say, Martinsville or St. Louis, but still a heavy braking track, a lot of shifting. Phoenix is one of the most physically demanding tracks on the schedule.”
Getting a good finish at Phoenix means being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
“Loose is fast at Phoenix, and the setups there are very aggressive,” Ware said. “You’ve got to run the car mechanically free, so you never feel good around Phoenix.”
In addition to the setups being aggressive, restarts are particularly aggressive. Drivers cut the dogleg of the track just past the start-finish line, where the field can be six cars wide before funneling back into line ahead of turn one.
“It’s a lot of risk versus reward, and it really depends on where your car’s balance is,” Ware said of cutting the dogleg. “If your ride height is pretty low, you might not want to take as many risks in tearing up your underbody. You could tear off some of your diffuser strakes and lose some downforce and negatively affect the car’s overall performance.
“It’s pretty chaotic and we see it every time we’re there. We’re four- or five- or six-wide going into turn one, and a lot of chaos happens there. Doing it just depends on how much you have to gain on those restarts.”
When drivers do choose to sweep low across the dogleg, how do they get back in line before turn one? To quote the Beatles, they get by with a little help from their friends.
“I do it with a lot of help from my spotter,” Ware said. “There are drivers who have different amounts of momentum, from all the way down against the inside wall to all the way up to the wall on the outside of the racetrack. It really just takes a good spotter to be able to see where the momentum shifts are, who has the runs, and how quickly you can try to clear yourself to at least be somewhat in the racing line getting into the corner, and it’s always pretty sketchy, especially those first handful of laps.”
The true first handful of laps begins Saturday with practice at 1:30 p.m. PDT/4:30 p.m. EDT, followed by qualifying at 2:35 p.m. PDT/5:35 p.m. EDT. TruTV and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide live coverage of both. Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500k goes green at 12 p.m. PDT/3 p.m. EDT with live, flag-to-flag coverage delivered by USA Network 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, FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX) and zMAX CARS Tour.
