NASCAR Ford team Rick Ware Racing (RWR) announced that Cody Ware will drive the No. 51 Ford Mustang fulltime in the Cup Series in 2025, putting him back on a full schedule after his arrest and subsequent suspension during the 2023 racing season.
Ware has driven the No. 51 Mustang on a limited schedule for several seasons, running all but one race during the 2022 campaign. He was unable to complete the entire 2023 Cup Series season after being arrested in April 2023 for alleged domestic assault, prompting the sanctioning body to suspend him. All charges were dropped and he was later reinstated by NASCAR in December 2023.
Ware went on to run nine Cup Series races throughout 2024, earning an average finish of 21.0, the second-best of the part-time drivers in the field behind AJ Allmendinger, who earned a 20.5 average finish across 16 races. Ware’s career-best finish was fourth, earned in the 2024 Daytona summer race.
“The NASCAR Cup Series is where every driver wants to be and I’m grateful to be back fulltime,” Ware said in a team release. “I’ve improved as a driver and RWR has improved as a team, and this is, by far, the best opportunity I’ve had in NASCAR. I aim to make the most of it and earn the respect of my competitors.”
Rick Ware, team owner at RWR and Cody Ware’s father, said, “Cody made a lot out of the nine races he ran for us last year and proved that he was deserving of a fulltime opportunity. Running a part-time schedule isn’t easy because it’s hard to develop consistency when you’re out of the car for weeks on end. But Cody made it work and he and crew chief Billy Plourde developed a good rapport.”
Billy Plourde will serve as crew chief for the No. 51 NASCAR Ford team throughout the 2025 Cup Series campaign. RWR is leasing its second charter to fellow NASCAR Ford team, Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, for the 2025 season.
Comments
Nepotism at it’s finest! LOL
The majority of drivers in all types of racing get their start with family owned and operated teams. Why is that a bad thing in NASCAR?