In addition to ongoing support for RCR and Kyle Busch, Lucas Oil will provide aerial broadcast coverage for several NASCAR Cup Series races this season.

INDIANAPOLIS (March 25, 2025) – Lucas Oil, the leader in high-performance lubricants and a long-time partner of Richard Childress Racing (RCR), will serve as the primary sponsor of the No. 8 Chevrolet, driven by two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, for multiple races throughout the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season, beginning at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway on March 30. Following that, the Lucas Oil colors will be seen at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City, June 15, and the Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, September 13, the third race of the Cup Series Playoffs.

“Our relationship with RCR is built on mutual respect, trust, and a shared passion for racing,” said Brandon Bernstein, Director of Partnership Marketing for Lucas Oil. “We’ve been working side by side with RCR and ECR Engines for over a decade, constantly developing and improving our products to meet the extreme demands of NASCAR racing. And Kyle Busch is not just one of the best drivers out there – he’s also part of the Lucas Oil family. We’re proud to back him and the No. 8 team, whether it’s on a short track, a superspeedway, or even in the sprint car world with his son, Brexton.”

This expanded partnership highlights Lucas Oil’s long standing commitment to RCR and its technical alliance with ECR Engines, which has been in place for more than a decade. As the official lubricant provider for RCR and ECR, Lucas Oil develops proprietary race-day formulations designed to maximize engine performance and reliability under the most demanding conditions.

“Season after season, Lucas Oil has given us the technical support needed to run up front and win, and that is what makes this partnership so exceptional and why we are thrilled to have them back as the primary sponsor of the No. 8 Chevrolet,” said Mike Verlander, president of RCR.

In addition to the partnership with RCR and ECR Engines, Lucas Oil also serves as the Official Oil for Kyle and Brexton Busch’s micro and sprint car team. The Busch family has been making headlines, with Brexton recently securing a victory in the Junior Sprint A-Main at the prestigious Tulsa Shootout – one of the biggest micro sprint racing events in the country.

Fans can catch Kyle Busch and the No. 8 Lucas Oil Chevrolet in action at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, March 30, 2025.

For more information and all that is going on at RCR, visit rcrracing.com.

About Lucas Oil:

For more than 35 years, Lucas has set the world standard in superior engine oils, additives, appearance and lubricant products – powering lifestyles across the automotive, trucking, marine, outdoor, motorsports, industrial and home product worlds. The hard-charging American brand’s commitment to bring the ultimate in performance solutions impacts every customer and partner equally – from jointly-engineered oil for racing teams like Richard Childress Racing (RCR), Monster Jam®, sports teams like the Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts, to additives that deliver unrivaled fuel economy, power and extended engine life to an everyday driver.

Based in Indianapolis, the company’s rapidly expanding global footprint is highlighted by cutting-edge research and development operations, evolving retail channels and high-tech manufacturing. More than 300 premium products make up the largest variety of shelf products of any oil company in the United States with a distribution network across 48 different countries and big-name retailers that include Amazon, Advance Auto Parts, AutoZone, O’Reilly Auto Parts, NAPA, Walmart, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, Rural King, Tractor Supply and more. For additional information, visit www.LucasOil.com and follow #TeamLucasOil on Facebook, Twitter, X, Instagram and TikTok.

About Richard Childress Racing:

Richard Childress Racing (www.rcrracing.com) is a renowned, performance-driven racing, marketing and manufacturing organization. Incorporated in 1969, RCR has celebrated over 50 years of racing and earned more than 200 victories and 16 championships, including six in the NASCAR Cup Series with the legendary Dale Earnhardt. RCR was the first organization to win championships in the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Truck Series and is a three-time winner of the Daytona 500 (1998, 2007, 2018). Its 2024 NASCAR Cup Series lineup includes two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch (No. 8 Chevrolet) and 2017 Coca-Cola 600 winner and 2018 Daytona 500 champion Austin Dillon (No. 3 Chevrolet). RCR fields a full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series program with Jesse Love (No. 2 Chevrolet) and Austin Hill (No. 21 Chevrolet).

As a Former High School Wrestler, Cody Ware is Ready for the Cook Out 400

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 25, 2025) – Wrestling a racecar for 400 laps around Martinsville (Va.) Speedway necessitates a strong upper-body and powerful legs, connected with a tight core. The flat, paperclip-shaped .526-mile oval makes for a physical race where drivers have to pull their steering wheel hard to the left 800 times while stabbing their brake pedal at the end of each, 800-foot-long straightaway. Whether one’s car is lightning quick or could use a jolt of lightning, Martinsville pushes the boundaries of human performance as much as a car’s mechanical limits.

The wrestling analogy is an apt one for Cody Ware. The driver of the No. 51 Arby’s Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Rick Ware Racing (RWR) wrestled in high school. In fact, he did it just 45 minutes south of Martinsville in the Greensboro, North Carolina, suburb of Jamestown. At Ragsdale High School, Ware made the varsity wrestling team as a freshman. He stayed there through his junior year before his burgeoning racing career meant a pivot to homeschooling. Ware earned his high school diploma in 2013 while racing Late Model stock cars and making a handful of starts on the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour.

“I started wrestling in middle school, probably around 2008, and then transitioned into high school wrestling. I made the varsity wrestling team my freshman year, which I was pretty proud of,” Ware said.

“Wrestling at Ragsdale was a big deal, so to be a freshman on the varsity team was a real honor. I had to beat out one of the seniors to make the cut. It always stuck with me that while making varsity was big, staying on the varsity team was just as big, if not bigger. Nothing was guaranteed. You had to go out and earn your place every match, every year.

“It’s what really got me started as an athlete. Being really tall, I needed to develop my core strength and overall fitness. I had a larger stature and I needed to make the most of it.”

Standing at 6 feet, 4 inches, Ware’s athleticism continues to serve him well as a fulltime competitor in the NASCAR Cup Series. Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville is more than just a friendly reminder that performance applies to both car and driver.

“There’s a lot of strength needed for driving a racecar, especially when it comes to braking,” Ware said. “It takes a lot of brake pressure to extract 700-800 pounds of braking force into the corner. And at Martinsville, we’re doing that 800 times over the course of 400 laps. It’s about being on your game from start to finish, where you’re as good on lap 400 as you were on lap one.

“The wrestling analogy is a good one for Martinsville. There’s a lot of tight racing and you’re throwing your car around. It can be chaos inside the car trying to do everything you need to make a good lap.”

Ware saw that chaos as a young fan in the stands. Martinsville was his hometown track, along with Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The now 29-year-old Ware was a regular visitor to both as a pre-teen and teenager, and the Triad area where he grew up – Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point – was home to many NASCAR entities.

“We had a ton of racing in the Triad when I grew up,” Ware said. “You had mega race teams that were there back in the 2000s, like Bill Davis Racing and the No. 45 team with Adam Petty. Bobby Labonte had his shop there. Clyde Vickers’ CV Products and his son, Brian, were from Thomasville. And, of course, there’s Bowman Gray, the longest running weekly racetrack in America. There’s just a lot of history, a lot of good racing, and a lot of good racers from that area. It was cool to grow up among it all.

“And people there take a lot of pride in it. It seems that Greensboro is always the No. 1 or No. 2 media market to watch NASCAR racing. People there are tuned in, they’re connected, and I think they wear it as a badge of honor.”

Badges of honor from Martinsville come in the form of busted front grills, bashed in back bumpers and Goodyear-made donut rings on the sides of racecars. While it’s all a part of racing in such cramped confines, mitigating those badges is important to ensuring one’s racecar is there at the finish. This puts a premium on qualifying, where with more cars behind you instead of in front of you, the greater your opportunities are to have a relatively clean race.

“At Martinsville, the biggest thing is going to be qualifying and track position, and I’m going to lean on Corey LaJoie to help me on that front,” said Ware, referencing his RWR teammate who is running a limited NASCAR Cup Series schedule in 2025. “Corey’s got a lot of seat time at Martinsville. I’ll be picking his brain more than normal to try to figure out what tweaks I can make to my driving style and how I can give good feedback to the crew so I get what I need out of the car.

“Tires equalize pretty quickly at Martinsville, and 40-50 laps into a run, everyone’s pretty much running the same time, whether it’s first or 36th. Whatever you can do to start strong and either maintain track position or improve on restarts, that’s where most of your progress is going to be made throughout the day.”

Practice for the Cook Out 400 begins at 2 p.m. EDT on Saturday with qualifying following immediately afterward. The race goes green at 3 p.m. on Sunday with live coverage provided by FS1 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 and FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX).

Allmendinger to Drive the No. 16 Black’s Tire Service Chevy at Martinsville Speedway

 Lexington, N.C. (March 24, 2025) – Kaulig Racing and Black’s Tire Service (BTS) announce an expansion of their partnership for the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway this Sunday. AJ Allmendinger will drive the No. 16 Black’s Tire Service Chevy for the NASCAR Cup Series race.

Black’s Tire, which celebrated its 95th anniversary in 2024, has more than 70 locations in both North and South Carolina and remains a local, family owned and operated tire seller and wholesaler. With many of those locations in NASCAR’s backyard, BTS is partnering with Martinsville Speedway to promote the Sunday race event. BTS looks forward to having many of their Partner Dealers and Black’s Tire family in attendance for this weekend’s event.

“On behalf of the over a thousand team members at Black’s Tire & Auto Service and BTS Tire & Wheel Distributors, we are honored to continue our relationship with AJ Allmendinger, Chris Rice and the Kaulig Racing family,” said President of Black’s Tire, Ricky Benton II. “BTS partners with other family, independent tire dealers to help each other in the tire business. BTS Tire and Wheel supplies wholesale tires, tire supplies, and equipment across NC, SC, VA and eastern GA. We’re excited that we have the ability to feature a few of our local BTS Partner Dealers on the car this weekend.”

Allmendinger, who previously represented BTS at Darlington in 2023, will hit the track with a ‘let’s go together’ mentality, while sporting the blue and yellow BTS colors. The BTS Family has embraced this saying as their theme for 2025 as it ensures that everyone feels like family when they walk through the doors of any BTS location.

“Black’s Tire has been a long-time partner for Kaulig Racing and we’re fortunate that we have the opportunity to expand on that relationship for short track racing this weekend,” said Chris Rice, Kaulig Racing team president. “We’re excited to continue working with them and represent their family brand in multiple events this spring.”

Earlier this year, the team announced BTS will serve as the primary partner for Christian Eckes on the No. 16 Chevy in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Darlington and Rockingham. As the presenting partner of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Rockingham, BTS will hold a special family and customer hospitality event prior to the event.

“We’re excited to work with our long-time friends at Kaulig Racing,” said Ricky Benton Sr., Black’s Tire Owner and Chairman of the Board said. “Being a part of their team, seeing the Black’s Tire Service Chevy on track, all while celebrating our family-owned and operated business is special.”

Allmendinger will be on track this weekend in the No. 16 Black’s Tire Service Chevy. Coverage for the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway will be on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR: Channel 90.

About Black’s Tire

Black’s Tire Service (BTS) was founded as Black’s Service Station by W. Crowell Black in Whiteville, N.C. in 1929 and celebrated its 95th anniversary in 2024. With more than 70 locations in both North and South Carolina, Black’s remains a local, family owned- and -operated tire sales and service and vehicle repair business. In addition to the retail and commercial locations, Black’s also operates 10 warehouse/distribution centers, BTS Tire & Wheel Distributors, a commercial sales division, and a tire-retreading business, Carolina Retreads. Today, the Black’s Tire family includes more than 1,000 team members. To learn more about Black’s Tire or to find a location, visit www.blackstire.com. Follow Black’s Tire on social media: Twitter at @BlacksTire, Instagram at @BlacksTire and Facebook at facebook.com/blackstire.

About Kaulig Racing

Kaulig Racing™ is a full-time, multi-car NASCAR Cup Series (NCS) and NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) team, owned by award winning entrepreneur, Matt Kaulig. Established in 2016, Kaulig Racing™ has earned 27 NXS wins, made the NXS Playoffs consecutively each season since the playoff system started, and won two regular-season championships. In 2021, the team competed in select NCS events, before expanding to a two-car, full-time NCS team in 2022 and adding a third, part-time entry during the 2023 season. Since its first NCS start in 2021, the team has earned two wins. Kaulig Racing is currently fielding two full-time entries in the NCS and continues to field three full-time NXS entries. To learn more about the team, visit kauligracing.com.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 24, 2025) – In support of NASCAR’s celebrated return to Rockingham Speedway, Spire Motorsports will showcase a “Race the Rock” paint scheme aboard Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Chevrolet ZL1 in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series 400-lap contest at Martinsville Speedway.

For the first time in over a decade, NASCAR will return to the south-central North Carolina Piedmont for the highly anticipated return of major league stock car racing to Rockingham Speedway.

Track Enterprises, the official promoter of the North Carolina Education Lottery 250 presented by Black’s Tire NASCAR Xfinity Series race and the Black’s Tire 200 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race, announced an agreement with Rockingham Speedway ownership last August to bring NASCAR back to the venerable Richmond County speedway Easter Weekend.

In addition to the Xfinity Series and CRAFTSMAN Truck Series events, the ARCA Menards East Series will mix it up for 125 laps prior to Saturday’s headliner at the legendary one-mile oval.

“Track Enterprises is thrilled to partner with Spire Motorsports and Michael McDowell to showcase NASCAR’s return to Rockingham Speedway,” said Bob Sargent, President of Track Enterprises. “NASCAR has a very rich history at both tracks and Martinsville is just a couple-hour drive from Rockingham. We thought it made great sense to take advantage of a NASCAR Cup Series race in such close proximity to Rockingham. We want fans to know that we’ll have an exciting weekend of racing in store and that tickets are still available, but they are going fast and we expect a great crowd both days.”

Rockingham Speedway, formerly named North Carolina Motor Speedway, was a staple on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule for nearly 40 years and includes a veritable who’s who of NASCAR on its list of previous winners.

The Xfinity Series was a regular player at the historic venue from 1982-2004 and features a cast of winners who went on to be some of the sport’s most respected names including David Pearson, Sam Ard, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Harry Gant, Mark Martin, Terry Labonte and Jamie McMurray.

Martin was an indomitable force at Rockingham in Xfinity Series competition throughout his career having collected 11 wins in 25 starts, including four straight during the 1996 and 1997 seasons. McMurray matched Martin’s four-peat by recording victories in the track’s most recent Xfinity Series races, over a decade ago.

The CRAFTSMAN Truck Series raced at Rockingham twice from 2012-2013 with Kasey Kahne and Kyle Larson collecting the victories. Matt Crafton, a 25-year CRAFTSMAN Truck Series veteran, is the only current series regular to have competed at the high-banked, D-shaped oval when the division last raced there 12 years ago.

Separate from Larson, current NASCAR Cup Series competitors Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Erik Jones, Tyler Reddick and Bubba Wallace were all part of the field when the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series last tested its mettle at Rockingham.

Although the 18-year Cup Series veteran has never raced at Rockingham Speedway, McDowell has plenty of fond memories of the track.

“Rockingham is a historic and iconic racetrack,” said McDowell. “Even though I haven’t raced at it, I did a lot of testing there. When you’re a rookie in the Cup Series in 2008, you did a lot of testing, and Rockingham was one of those places. So, I have a lot of laps there – not racing – but a lot of laps. Rockingham is a great racetrack, iconic and historic, and it shows NASCAR’s continued effort to get back to its roots.”

McDowell compared “The Rock” to the recent buzz surrounding the NASCAR Cup Series recent return to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the division’s annual All-Star Race.

“If you look at the revival of North Wilkesboro with the new asphalt but still a legendary and historic feel, Rockingham is no different.” McDowell continued. “It’s going to be a great Easter weekend, April 18-19, and tickets are still available. I’m going to be there with my family. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I know the racing will not disappoint.”

Fans can log on to racetherock.com for continuing details, schedule updates or to purchase tickets for NASCAR’s return to Rockingham Speedway. Tickets are also available for purchase in person at Rockingham City Hall Monday – Thursday from 8 a.m. – noon and 1 p.m. – 5 p.m., and on Fridays from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. Both single day and weekend ticket packages are available.

Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Martinsville Speedway will be televised live on FS1 Sunday, March 30 beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The seventh of 36 points-paying races on the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series schedule will be broadcast live on the Motor Racing Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

About Rockingham Speedway …

Located in Richmond County, N.C., Rockingham Speedway opened as a flat, one-mile oval on Oct. 31, 1965. It was reconfigured to a one-mile (1.017 miles) high-banked, D-shaped oval in 1969.

In 2018, a new ownership group took over the facility and renamed it Rockingham Speedway & Entertainment Complex. On Nov. 18, 2021, N.C., Governor Roy Cooper signed the 2021-2022 North Carolina state budget allocating $9 million to support reinvestment in the facility. The state funds, along with ownership investment, allowed for redevelopment of the racetrack including the racing surface and extensive repairs. Today, the facility hosts a wide variety of events including karting, road racing, endurance racing, concerts and more. In 2025, Rockingham Speedway will welcome the return of NASCAR for the first time since 2013.

About Track Enterprises …

Track Enterprises has been promoting motorsports events since 1985. Based in Macon, Ill., a dedicated staff, led by longtime promoter Bob Sargent, organize and promote upwards of 80 races a year across the eastern half of the United States. Track Enterprises was responsible for the highly-acclaimed return of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series to the Milwaukee Mile in 2023.

About Spire Motorsports …

Spire Motorsports earned its inaugural NASCAR Cup Series victory in its first full season of competition when Justin Haley took the checkered flag in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway on July 7, 2019. Less than three years later, William Byron drove Spire Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet Silverado to its inaugural NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series win on April 7, 2022, at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The team’s most recent win came March 21, 2025, when Kyle Larson took the checkered flag in the Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

In 2025, Spire Motorsports will campaign the Nos. 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolets in the NASCAR Cup Series. The team will also field the Nos. 07, 7, 71 and 77 Chevrolet Silverados in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and the No. 77 Chevrolet in the ARCA Menards Series in select events.