Rick Ware Racing Celebrates zMAX CARS Tour Pro Late Model Owners' Championship

Rick Ware Racing earned its first stock car racing championship on Saturday as part of the zMAX CARS Tour finale at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

With a second-place finish for Luke Baldwin, Rick Ware Racing secured the 2025 zMAX CARS Tour Pro Late Model owners' championship. Baldwin capped off a true team effort, as the team saw several different drivers pilot the No. 51 entry over the course of the season.

Baldwin went to victory lane twice with the team, winning at Orange County and Anderson. Carson Ware also won at Ace Speedway, dashing to the checkered flag ahead of Ben Maier and approaching precipitation in a rain-shortened feature.

Cody Ware, Harrison Burton and Mason Maggio also drove the No. 51 during the 2025 season., with Cody Ware finishing fifth on March 1 at Coastal Plains Raceway and Burton finishing fourth on September 13 at South Boston Speedway.

Ware has won championships in series outside the stock car world, such as the Asian Le Mans Series, FIM World Supercross Championship and AMA Flat Track Championship. Now, he can add a CARS Tour title to that list of accomplishments.

While Baldwin earned the title with a strong showing in the finale at North Wilkesboro, Ware never took it for granted. The No. 51 team entered the race with a slim points margin which could have easily disappeared.

“It’s just awesome any time you can win a professional racing championship," said Ware. "Championships are tough because, you know, we came in here with a four-point lead. I think we ended up with 16 cars on the lead lap. So what that means is, if we would have gotten shuffled out or overdrove or slapped the wall, we would have fell back.

“We lost one championship this year in the Super Twins at Flat Track at the last race of the year. It could have happened here, but it didn’t."

Not only did the team prove it could win races at the CARS Tour level, but it put together a full season worthy of the championship.

"It means a lot, because this is a fantastic series," Ware said. "This has a lot of street cred to it. I mean, the drivers and team owners, I mean, they’re just amazing. You’ve got team owners that have won championships in Late Models for decades, and they’re now in an owner status.

“So you come here, you’re going to get your butt handed to you until you can get it figured out. We did for a third of the year. We’re just thankful that we were able to put together consistency and string it together and win by a few points.”

While the CARS Tour's Late Model Stock division is viewed as the tougher of the two divisions, Ware says his team will likely stick to Pro Late Model competition because of the platform's versatility nationwide.

“For us, from a business standpoint, the Pro Late, we can race it anywhere. We can go out west, where there’s going to be more races out west with the CARS West deal. We can go to the Snowflake [125 at Five Flags Speedway], we can go to the Blizzard [Series and Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series]. We can go to specialty races.

“I don’t look at [CARS Late Model Stock Car racing] as necessarily a step up. I look at that as something that is extremely competitive. You may argue that, because there are more cars that they might be more competitive.

“Late Model Stock Cars, those drivers are fantastic, and the owners are fantastic. The series, I mean, think about it, the series has two extremely competitive Late Model divisions. That’s insane.”

Keelan Harvick scored the victory in the zMAX CARS Tour Pro Late Model finale at North Wilkesboro. With a fourth-place finish, Ben Maier earned the series' drivers' championship.

-Photo credit: True Speed Communication