(cover photo credit: wareracing.com)
By Adam Carabine
In case you missed it, StatChat is counting down the days ‘til the 2023 Daytona 500. Every two days, we will have a new article featuring one of the 36 charters of 2022.
34th Place – #15 Car – 334 pts
RICK WARE RACING – FORD
JJ Yeley (17 races) – Joey Hand (6 races) – Garrett Smithley (6 races) – David Ragan (4 races) – Ryan Preece – (2 races) – Parker Kligerman (1 race)
14 Stage points in 2022 – Rick Ware Racing, at least in 2022, was not in the sport to try and earn wins. While yes, they’d happily have taken one, their focus would likely just be on finishing races with minimal damage to their cars, and outperforming their equipment. 14 points may not be a massive amount compared to the Championship contenders, but it was better than 4 other charters.
9 Lead Lap Finishes in 2022 – Finishing on the lead lap can be a challenge for some of the lesser-funded teams. When you’re running even just 0.1 seconds slower than the leaders, over the course of a long race you can wind up many laps down. There are ways to make your way back to the lead lap, but cautions are not always a given.
-259 Pass Differential – The number of cars you pass, minus the number of cars who pass you = Pass Differential. When you combine all 6 drivers of the #15 Car over the course of the season, they were passed 259 times more than they passed others. Though -259 sounds like a pretty bad number, it actually was better than Chris Buescher and Cole Custer, who were in far better equipment.
8th Finishing position at the Daytona 500 – A Top-10 for either the 15 or the 51 cars for Rick Ware Racing is a highlight of the season. The 15, driven by David Ragan at the 2022 Daytona 500, earned its best finish of the year at the first points race, finishing 8th. Coincidentally, David Ragan also scored the only other Top-10 of the #15 Car’s 2022, placing 9th at Daytona again in the Summer.
6 DNFs – Of the 4 charters with rotating drivers (also including Kaulig’s #16, Spire’s #77 and Live Fast’s #78), the #15 Rick Ware Racing Car had the fewest DNFs. To finish 30 of the 36 races (83.3%) is an accomplishment that must have had the ownership group very happy in 2022.
Rick Ware Racing has yet to announce its driver lineup for 2023. As mentioned in the previous article, Rick Ware Racing did announce they were forming a technical partnership with RFK Racing, which could give them some extra speed on the track.
Coming up next in the Countdown to Daytona series – #77 Car!
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