With a fourth-place finish from Cody Ware and a team-high 21 laps led courtesy of Justin Haley, last Saturday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona was among the best showings for Rick Ware Racing in its NASCAR Cup Series tenure.
That has been the prevailing storyline for the organization this season, as the hiring of Justin Haley and Chris Lawson, coupled with its alliance with RFK Racing has aided the two-car operation in being more competitive.
Now, the NASCAR Cup Series travels to Darlington, South Carolina for Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500, the second of two scheduled events this season at the 1.366-mile Darlington Raceway.
The 25-year-old driver has performed quite well at Darlington in NASCAR’s premier series, notching three top-10 results in seven starts, including a third-place finish for Kaulig Racing in Spring 2022. Haley has finished top-10 at Darlington in each of his three full-time Cup Series seasons.
It was the event at this very racetrack, in May, that ended with Haley scoring his first top-10 finish for Rick Ware Racing, finishing ninth-place, the first for the organization on a non-drafting track. Kaz Grala, a good friend and teammate of Haley, also finished a respectable 18th on that afternoon.
That ninth-place result was the second race in a sequence of six to eight weeks where Rick Ware Racing had the No. 51 Ford Mustang running in or around the top-15, which led to Haley scoring another top-10 at WWT Raceway and top-15s at Iowa Speedway and Nashville Superspeedway, plus nearly advancing to the NASCAR All-Star Race.
“I’m really excited,” Haley said in a pre-Darlington advance. “I feel like Darlington is where we’ve run the best. I think we’ve continued to build on what we learned that weekend and are in a great position to have another top-10 race.”
Heading into Sunday’s regular-season finale at Darlington, Haley sits 30th in NASCAR Cup Series point standings, ahead of full-time drivers from LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, Spire Motorsports, and Wood Brothers Racing, teams that the No. 51 hadn’t been able to beat in previous seasons.
With the NASCAR Playoffs on everybody’s mind, right now, Haley would need to win Sunday’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway to make the 10-race post-season, which in itself would be a major upset for the Cup Series and a massive statement from Rick Ware Racing.
“You never know,” Haley said when asked if he could win Sunday’s race. “Darlington is always a crazy race, especially once we get to September and the night race. There’s a reason the Southern 500 is a crown jewel, it’s not easy to win. I don’t know if it necessarily gets any crazier than it usually is, but I think it’ll be like any cutoff race. We’ll just be on our toes and ready for whatever comes.”
Otherwise, the final handful of events in 2024 will be all about maximizing points, as the Winamac, Indiana-native looks to climb up the standings, chasing down Austin Dillon (RCR), Daniel Hemric (Kaulig), Ryan Preece (SHR), and potentially even Erik Jones (LMC).
