Over the past month, Justin Haley has simultaneously risen his stock but also that of Rick Ware Racing, and both seem poised for bigger things in some shape or form.
Like everyone racing under the Ford Performance banner, the first three months of the season was a grind but that was particularly true of a satellite team with less resources than those racing for wins each week like Rick Ware Racing.
It seemed like the status quo for the No. 51 team, long derided as the worst full-time car on the grid, but this is a different Rick Ware Racing. Haley has maintained for a year now, since signing his contract, that he wouldn’t have come here otherwise.
Haley has started to contend for top-10s over the past month with the strongest runs coming at Darlington, Gateway and Iowa. They were running in the top-15 at Sonoma when the power steering pump gave out. Rick Ware Racing is starting to find its footing within the RFK Racing campus but also with the first-year pairing of Haley and well-regarded crew chief Chris Lawson.
It’s just been a month and it doesn’t era the first 13 races of the season but is this run of performance what he really expected the new look No. 51 to be capable of?
“I tell people all the time that it’s hard to judge what the Dark Horse is because it’s all new to me, the aero balance, because everything Ford was brand new to me,” said Haley, who only drove Chevrolets under the NextGen era. “Definitely over the past month or so, everyone has picked up on the whole and obviously we’ve benefitted from it as well.
“Obviously, we knew what we were capable of because I wouldn’t have done it (sign with Ware) if I didn’t see success at some point.”
Haley says these are ‘literally the best driving race cars of my life’ and that he has a bond with Rick Ware, Robby Benton and Tommy Baldwin Jr.
“They’re giving me all the tools to succeed,” Haley said. “We have some trickle down from RFK. We don’t get everything, it’s still an alliance, but we make the most of what we do get and I’m super thankful for Brad.”
So, as remarkable as it sounds, Rick Ware Racing could win a race with Haley under the right circumstances — like clean air, fortuitous cautions or just a really good track for them.
“Right now, our cars drive so well that if you give us clean air, we can win,” Haley said. “I think you give half the field clean air right now and they win.
“It just depends, our cars drive good, and we’ve had great execution lately. We’ll keep moving forward and there’s a lot to progress. But I’ve never been in this position at the Cup level where I’ve had great cars week in and week out. They are truly as competitive as anything I’ve driven.”
The rest of the world has taken notice too.
Haley, who despite being in the first year of a two-year deal with a team option, is drawing interest from other teams. He even appears to be a candidate for the Wood Brothers No. 21, a de facto fourth Penske car, but that would require a buyout of some kind.
For his part, Haley says he is all-in with Rick Ware Racing and indicated that whatever comes next will be for their benefit.
“Looking back a year ago, Rick Ware and Lisa Ware, they gave me an opportunity when I was high and dry and didn’t have an opportunity left in the series,” Haley said. “I trusted them, they trusted me, and I kind of gambled my whole career and life, and everything I have done up to that point to trust Rick and his process and see him through.
“We’re fully committed. I think we’re running too good right now to, you know, really veer too far off the path of anything…without Rick, I wouldn’t even be in the Cup Series right now…Whatever Rick wants my future to be, you know, if [he wants] me to stay for five to 10 years, I’ll stay for five to 10 years, just because he gave me the opportunity when no one else would…I kind of owe everything to him.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.