There is an entire faction of people who will try to tell you that superspeedway qualifying doesn’t mean anything; that it’s not about where you start, it’s where you finish; or that what happens on Saturday is irrelevant to the outcome of Sunday’s race.
But, in the NASCAR Cup Series, where only ONE DRIVER has won from a starting spot outside of the top 12 in the last eight traditional superspeedway events (at Daytona or Talladega), those people are wrong. Saturday does matter.
While the majority of the headlines from Saturday’s qualifying session will be focused on a front row including Chase Briscoe and Austin Hill (the teams that won each of the last two DAYTONA 500 poles), back in 11th-place is an incredible story, that of Cody Ware and Rick Ware Racing.
Ware, driving the No. 51 Rocket Doctor Chevrolet Camaro, was the fifth driver to hit the racetrack in Saturday’s single-vehicle qualifying session from Talladega, and laid down an unexpectedly fast lap.
It didn’t end up holding the provisional pole for very long – with Alex Bowman going out just eight cars after Ware – but, in the grand scheme of the 40-car NASCAR Cup Series field, the time was stellar and just about held on to put Rick Ware Racing into the final round of qualifying.
Ware, when the dust settled, would be bumped out by 0.017 seconds.
That 11th-place qualifying run, though, was by far a career-best for Ware, who will make his 176th NASCAR Cup Series start on Sunday. Aside from a 10th-place start at Richmond with Cole Custer in 2018 (in a car aided by Stewart-Haas Racing), Saturday’s run was the best in team history, as well.
“It’s probably one of the most bittersweet feelings I’ve felt; we have a bad-fast No. 51 Rocket Doctor Chevrolet. Billy Plourde [crew chief] and everybody on the team has done a phenomenal job building this race car,” Ware told Steven Taranto after qualifying. “We got a lot of help from [Richard Childress Racing] and Matt in the engineering department. You know, it’s tough, rolling off 11th, I think it’s our best qualifying run as an organization, so it’s cool to do that, but also, I wish we could have had one more spot and made it into Round 2, but other than that, great day.”
With a strong starting spot for Sunday’s 500-miler, it’s a whole new world for Cody Ware, who previously has had to drive through the field to get track position at the front – which, more often than not, would require them sacrificing a sound strategy.
The driver of the No. 51 has paced the NASCAR Cup Series field for two or more laps in four of the last five events at Daytona and Talladega, but due to the strategy element of those races, hasn’t been able to secure the finishes to reflect their performance.
Ware has two career top-10 finishes, both at Daytona International Speedway (a fourth in the Summer of 2024 and a sixth in the Summer of 2022). But, his best finish at Talladega? P12.
Granted, in his 23 starts between the two superspeedways, Ware had never managed to start better than 25th. So, from a race execution standpoint, Sunday’s YellaWood 500 will be drastically different than anything he’s done before.
“Yeah, I think it definitely gives us a lot of opportunities to kind of hang out where we’re at, instead of having to make our way to the front. We can do a lot of fuel saving and strategy work with where we’re at, so I think that puts us in a really good position for tomorrow to do everything we need to get ready,” Ware said about the advantages of his starting spot.
So, when Sunday’s race gets down to the nitty-gritty, will everybody be talking about the upset of all upsets?
“I think we’re in good shape,” Ware said.
