This season there has been nearly as much activity in the courtroom as there has been on the track with lengthy on going legal issues.
Rick Ware has been trying to sell his race team; but there is a battle over one of the charters owned by the team.
Rick Ware Racing currently owns two charters but is fielding only one car this season – the 51 car driven by son Cody. The other charter is being leased to Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing.
Legacy Motor Club – owned by seven time champions Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson – alleges that RWR has agreed to sell one of their charters for $45 million to Legacy so that they can run three full time teams.
In the latest court ruling, the judge had granted a temporary injunction against Rick Ware Racing, keeping owner Rick Ware from selling the team until the issue with the charters has been resolved.
To further complicate the issue, Rick Ware had agreed to swap charters with RFK next season under another lease agreement. Ware states that the agreement to sell a charter to Legacy Motor Club was for 2027.
Legacy alleges that the agreement is for 2026.
Meanwhile, Ware has negotiated a deal with a broker – T.J. Puchyr, co-founder of Spire Motorsports turned motorsports consultant – for Legacy to purchase the entire team for $150 million.
Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge Clifton Smith issued the injunction that expands an earlier restraining order pausing Ware’s sale of the team. Smith ruled, “Legacy showed likelihood of success on the merits of its case, was likely to sustain irreparable loss unless an injunction was issued and that the potential harm to Legacy outweighed any potential harm to Ware.
A trial is scheduled for January, shortly before the 2026 season begins.
Legacy has further convoluted the affair by terminating its consulting agreement with Puchyr and has filed a suit against Puchyr for “interfering with the deal with Ware”.