MOORESVILLE, N.C. — While Labor Day weekend was established long ago as a respite from work, there is no respite for those working in racing.
This is especially true at Rick Ware Racing, with the organization’s footprint stretching across four different series in three very different disciplines, covering both four wheels and two, competing on asphalt and dirt.
“The Labor Day weekend is an anomaly because there is so much at stake for our team,” said Rick Ware, a third-generation racer who formed his eponymous team in 1995.
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series headlines the weekend with its signature event, the U.S. Nationals from Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. RWR enters the “Big Go” as the defending winner of the event, as Top Fuel driver Clay Millican delivered RWR its first U.S. Nationals win when he defeated four-time Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence with a scorching run in his 12,000-horsepower Arby’s dragster.
Joining Millican for the 71st edition of the U.S. Nationals is the winningest Top Fuel driver in NHRA history, Tony Schumacher.
The eight-time Top Fuel champion makes his RWR debut this weekend in his American Communications Construction dragster, and it comes at an event where 10 of his series-leading 88 Top Fuel victories have been scored. An 11th U.S. Nationals win would tie Schumacher with the all-time event mark held by Top Alcohol Funny Car driver Frank Manzo.
“I feel a decent amount of stress going into Indy,” Ware said. “We’re the defending winners with Clay, and we’re coming back with a guy named Tony Schumacher who’s a 10-time U.S. Nationals winner, and we picked the toughest race of the year to have him make his RWR debut.
“The U.S. Nationals is spread out over five days. We unload Thursday, we qualify Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the finals are on Monday. It’s an iconic event and we want to deliver. But first off, we’ve got to qualify our way in. Drag racing is brutal and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are in points, you’ve got to qualify, and sometimes it can take all three days to even get into the finals. So, we’re not going in there with our chests out just because we won last year. The competition is just insane. Nothing is guaranteed. You’ve got to earn everything, and you’re extremely thankful when you do.”
Seven hundred miles southeast of Indianapolis, another crown-jewel event takes place – the Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. The 76th running of this NASCAR Cup Series classic features Cody Ware, driver of RWR’s No. 51 Parts Plus Ford Mustang Dark Horse.
Ahead of Sunday’s 500-miler at Darlington, Cody will compete in the zMAX Cars Tour Pro Late Model race Friday night at nearby Florence Speedway in Timmonsville, South Carolina. RWR currently leads the Pro Late Model owners’ standings by 25 points thanks to three wins – two by Luke Baldwin and one by Carson Ware, Cody’s younger brother.
“Our involvement in the CARS Tour started out by us just planning to run a handful of Super Late Model races down in Florida during Speedweek, and then maybe do some one-off stuff before running the Snowball Derby or some other races later in the year,” Rick Ware said.
“But, we decided to put a Pro motor in it and Luke ended up winning and we took over the points lead. And then it was like, ‘Well, now what do we do?’ We put Carson in the next week and he won. That bolstered our points lead, so we just kept showing up.
“Geographically, this weekend works well. Florence is just down the road from Darlington, so Cody can race Friday night and then wake up in his motorcoach on Saturday at Darlington and be ready for practice and qualifying. Ideally, we build off that top-20 run we had last week at Daytona and get another solid result there in Darlington.”
There is another championship in RWR’s crosshairs – the Progressive American Flat Track SuperTwins title – where RWR rider Briar Bauman has an 11-point lead over his nearest pursuer, Dallas Daniels, with just three races left on the calendar.
Two of those races will be run this weekend in a doubleheader event at the Springfield Mile at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
Bauman, a seven-time winner already this year, the most recent of which came in the last SuperTwins race Aug. 16 in the Peoria TT in Bartonville, Illinois, is eyeing his third SuperTwins championship.
“AFT at Springfield is the equivalent of NASCAR at Daytona or Talladega,” Rick Ware said. “It’s a mile long, so we’re on our speedway program. Briar and the SuperTwins guys are going 140-plus mph.
“You’ve got to have your ducks in a row with back-to-back races on Saturday and Sunday. If you don’t, you have back-to-back problems. The place is hard on equipment and hard on riders.
“What Briar has done this year is impressive, and the year’s not over. He’s now won the most short track races in SuperTwins history, he got the first win for Harley-Davidson with the XG750R since its original debut in 2016, and now we’re trying to win them a championship.”
Labor Day weekend presents an intense and challenging schedule, but it’s one relished by Ware.
“It’ll be tough to get all four series going smoothly at the same time. Racing can be brutal, but that’s also what makes it so exciting,” Ware said. “I’m a racer and, at the end of the day, this is a business, and I’m thankful to be able to do it for a living.
“Any racer will tell you they can vividly remember the details of the races they lost, almost more so than the ones they won. And with the ones you just barely lost, the scars are there. But that’s what makes racing awesome too, because when you have success, you know how hard you worked to get it.”
