07-03-2025
'Racing Addict' Rick Ware Making Waves in More than Just NASCAR, NHRA
Rick Ware became a NASCAR Cup team owner first.
Then the 64-year-old expanded into the NHRA, American Flat Track motorcycle racing and FIM World Supercross.
Ware's weekend travel schedule is dictated by sponsor obligations and marketing programs.
Like several NASCAR Cup team owners, Rick Ware raced when he was young, and like a few of them he has ventured into other racing series; however, none of them possess the team diversity that Ware does, which the California native believes gives him an advantage when he's hunting sponsors. 'My opinion is every sport has benefits that some other sports don't,' Ware says. 'Obviously, the Cup Series is the 800-pound gorilla. That's the cornerstone of motorsports, especially in this country. But a sponsor has different needs at different times and some forms of motorsports are more user friendly than others for different kinds of things. That's what's allowed us to keep growing.'Ware became a NASCAR Cup team owner first. Then the 64-year-old expanded into the NHRA, American Flat Track motorcycle racing and FIM World Supercross.
This weekend:• Cody Ware is competing in the Cup Series at Phoenix Raceway.• Clay Millican sports RWR colors in Top Fuel in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season opening Gatornationals in Gainesville, Florida.• At Daytona International Speedway, Chase Saathoff and Briar Bauman are representing RWR in the 450 Singles and SuperTwins division, respectively, in the Progressive American Flat Track motorcycle season opener.• Ware's FIM World Supercross Championship team begins its season in October at London (England) Stadium. However, before this year:• In 2019-2020, RWR claimed the LMP2 championship in the Asian Le Mans Series.• In 2022, Shane McElrath won the 2022 WSX 250cc class title.• In 2024, RWR secured a podium finish in IMSA's VP Racing SportsCar Challenge LMP3 class at Daytona, and a Top Fuel victory with Millican in the NHRA's prestigious U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, his fourth event win since joining the organization. Kody Kopp earned the 450 Singles class championship in American Flat Track.
Ware notes it's important for a small team to be able to show photos of its competitors hoisting trophies and having podium finishes. Winning championships and marquee events in various series provides RWR with 'various assets' that allow it to do a 'value add'.
He cited the team's Arby's sponsorship as a 'perfect example.' He also noted he probably wouldn't have had Arby's as a sponsor if he had been involved solely in NASCAR. 'We put together a test market with our global Supercross program, our flat track program, our Top Fuel program and the NASCAR program to weigh out the benefits,' Ware explains. 'A year ago, I think we were at four different events in one weekend. Whether it's buyers, distributors, marketing teams, initiatives, there's some place (a sponsor can send their people). 'We have 253 people showing up to service Sunday at the Gatornationals. I can't even imagine how we would do it (at a NASCAR race) or the cost to do it. That's nothing negative against NASCAR, it's just a different, viable product.' Ware's weekend travel schedule is dictated by sponsor obligations and marketing programs. 'I'll go to where I feel like it's very important for me to have a presence,' Ware explains. 'I can't even make a fraction of all of them. The first three wins we had in the '23 season with Clay (Millican) in Top Fuel, I wasn't at any of those and that was heartbreaking.'
While Roger Penske has teams competing in NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA and the World Endurance Cup, and Justin Marks is in NASCAR and Moto GP, it's Ware's Southern California background that's led RWR to its wide variety of race teams. Ware grew up in an era when Southern California was a racing hot bed—dragsters, sports cars, stock cars, off-road vehicles, motorcycles, Sprint and Champ cars—and he was exposed to all of it. 'In my mindset, I just wanted to race, and I really wasn't focused on any one particular thing,' said Ware, who once ran a lathe at Stock Car Products in Santa Fe Springs. One might expect RWR to be a massive organization due to its numerous teams, but that's not the case. The total number of full-time employees—fewer than 50.
'Our NASCAR team is probably a quarter of the size of the next two-car team. Our drag race team is probably just average,' Ware says. 'The real key is the marketing, social media, sponsor hunting, day-to-day is very small for what we do, but every person literally does five different jobs. We're extremely hands-on in every aspect of the things that we do.'The NASCAR team is located in Concord, North Carolina, within walking distance of RFK Racing, with whom RWR has an alliance. The rest of the teams are housed about 20 miles away in a Mooresville, North Carolina, facility.'It was a little bit of an uphill battle moving a Top Fuel team to Mooresville, but my belief is that Mooresville has probably the biggest concentration of motorsports brain power and experience in the world,' Ware says. 'If you're going to train people from another genre of racing to do something in a Top Fuel Car, the core racing mentality is there.' Many NHRA teams are based in Indianapolis, but Ware says he doesn't have time to travel to Indiana once or twice a week to 'babysit' a drag racing team. And this year, he's adding a second with eight-time NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher running a limited schedule. So, how can a third-generation racer do so much with so little when other organizations have hundreds of employees? Perhaps Kyle Petty provided the answer when he once said a racer will always find a way to make something work. 'I'm a racing addict,' Ware admits. 'I love racing. I want to win, I want to win championships, and I want to continue to grow.'
