Justin Haley, Driver of the No. 51 Grady Health System Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Justin Haley, driver of the No. 51 Grady Health System Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will make his eighth NASCAR Cup Series start at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Sunday’s Quaker State 400. In the season’s first outing at Atlanta in February, Haley earned his first top-20 for Rick Ware Racing (RWR). The 25-year-old racer has two top-10 finishes at Atlanta, both earned on the current configuration. The first was a seventh-place finish in July 2022, the second an eight-place finish in July 2023. The track was reconfigured following the 2021 season, which resulted in the 1.54-mile oval producing superspeedway-type racing.
● Haley has made six NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Atlanta, all top-10s. Best among them was a third-place finish in June 2020. He finished 10th and fourth in the March and July 2023 races, respectively.
● With 26 races complete, Haley ranks third in laps and miles completed as the Cup Series enters its final 10-race stretch. He leads all Ford drivers in both categories.
● Partnering with Haley and the No. 51 Ford team for RWR this weekend is Atlanta-based Grady Health System. In racing, every second counts. The same is true when it comes to stroke treatment. Recognizing the signs of a stroke saves lives. Remember BE FAST: Balance, Eyes, Face, Arms, Speed, Time. If you see any of these signs, don’t drive or wait, call 911. Grady Health System’s Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center is ready to act fast with state-of-the-art treatment and a dedicated stroke team at the ready.
Cody Ware, Driver of the No. 15 Mighty Fire Breaker Ford Mustang Dark Horse
● Mighty Fire Breaker partners with RWR and driver Cody Ware as the primary sponsor of the No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Sunday’s Quaker State 400. Mighty Fire Breaker LLC is a leading provider of environmentally safe and sustainable solutions for proactive wildfire defense. The Mighty Fire Breaker portfolio includes EPA Safer Choice Certified Citrotech® Wildfire Inhibitors, mobile and stationary spray application systems, and GPS-tracking, recording and mapping technologies that support intelligent proactive wildfire defense management practices.
● Ware will make his eighth start at Atlanta Sunday and his third on the current configuration. His best finish on the 1.54-mile oval was 23rd, earned in July 2022.
● Ware earned his career-best Cup Series finish two weeks ago in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. The 28-year-old racer powered his way to a fourth-place result in overtime, matching the organization’s overall best Cup Series finish.
● After debuting with Ware at Atlanta, Mighty Fire Breaker will return to the No. 15 Ford Dark Horse Mustang Oct. 16 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. They will also serve as primary partner on the No. 51 Top Fuel Dragster piloted by Clay Millican in the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series. Millican will carry the Mighty Fire Breaker scheme for Texas Fall Nationals Oct. 10-13 at Texas Motorplex in Ennis and in the season-ending In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals Nov. 14-17 at Pomona (Calif.) Dragstrip.
Rick Ware Racing Notes
● Top Fuel driver Clay Millican earned his seventh career victory at last weekend’s U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. Millican defeated four-time world champion Steve Torrence in the final round Monday with a run of 3.792 seconds at 327.82 mph to win his first U.S. Nationals title. Though Millican is seeded sixth leading into the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, his focus was on his win. “I’ve definitely been the underdog my entire life. I promise you that, but I have a lot of fight in me,” Millican said. “Nothing will ever top Bristol, including the U.S. Nationals, but this is like winning the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, the World Series. This is career-defining stuff. To win with Rick Ware here was cool. I won three times last year and he wasn’t at any of them. He came on Friday, he has two NASCAR teams racing in Darlington, but he was here. It was cool to call him last year and say we won, but there is nothing like being here.” The next event for the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series will take place Sept. 12-15 at Maple Grove Raceway in Mohnton, Pennsylvania.
● American Flat Track riders Kody Kopp, Shayna-Texter Bauman and Briar Bauman competed last weekend in the the Springfield Mile doubleheader at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. In Mission SuperTwins, Bauman still sits fourth in the point standings despite finishes of 19th and 17th. Two-time-champion Kopp earned fourth-place finishes in each race and fell just three points short of clinching a fourth championship. Texter-Bauman earned her best finishes of the season, fifth in the first main and ninth in the second. AFT will be back in action for the championship events Sept. 14 at the Lake Ozark Speedway Short Track in Eldon, Missouri.
● Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age six 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 seat and into fulltime team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that fields two fulltime entries in the 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), where RWR won the 2022 SX2 championship with rider Shane McElrath.
Justin Haley, Driver Q&A
Based on what you learned from the Atlanta race in February, what can be expected this weekend?
“I think we’re going to see a different race with this one being during the day. Cars probably aren’t going to handle great, but some of the guys that aren’t the fastest might be able to offset that if they have a car that handles well. No matter what, track position is going to be extremely important. You’ll want to be at the front of the field and try to stay there to have a shot at the end.”
As a driver not competing for a championsip, how you do race around the 16 playoff contenders throughout the final 10 races?
“We all want to win and get the best finish for our team, whether we’re competing in the playoffs or not, but you don’t want to be that guy who ruins it for one of the playoff drivers. It’s definitely become more difficult to balance that. The racing we see now is so aggressive, all the way through the field. You’ve got guys racing for 25th like it’s for the win. You want to be aware and let them do what they need to do, but I’ve still got a job to do, to get the best possible finish for Rick Ware Racing. So, I think you have to take it race by race and just be smart.”
Cody Ware,
Driver Q&A
Your last outing in the No. 15 resulted in a top-five at Daytona. What will it take to turn that positive momentum into a good run at Atlanta?
“The finish at Daytona is evidence of how far this organization has come. We’ve been talking all year about everyone’s dedication to improvement and that was the proof. I think you have to use that same speedway-racing mindset at Atlanta. Stay out of trouble early on and be up front at the end. Track position late in the race will be really important at Atlanta. So, if we can stick around and be in position like we were at Daytona, we can come out with a similar result.”
With Atlanta producing more drafting since the reconfiguration, how does it differ from the larger superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega?
“It’s a smaller track, which changes everything. Less room and time to avoid things or make moves. Everything is tighter and, even though speeds may not be as high, your reaction time still shortens with that.”
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