Judge Blocks Sale of Rick Ware’s NASCAR Team
A North Carolina judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing Rick Ware from selling his NASCAR team, amid a legal dispute over one of his charters.Earlier this year, Legacy Motor Club and Rick Ware Racing agreed that Ware would sell one of his two Cup charters, similar to franchises in other sports, to Legacy, owned by seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. A charter guarantees a car’s entry into all 38 NASCAR races and determines how a team is paid.
Johnson and Legacy were seeking the charter to expand their entries to three cars and agreed to give Ware 45 million dollars for one of his two charters. Currently, Ware uses one for his own team and the other is leased to RFK Racing for 2025. Ware already had an agreement with RFK to exchange charters in 2026 under another lease agreement. Ware argued that, because of that existing agreement, he agreed to sell Legacy a charter in 2027. Legacy sued, alleging Ware signed a contract for a sale in 2026, a deal that would essentially put him out of business, as he had already promised a charter to RFK. Meanwhile, Ware reached an agreement with the broker who negotiated the charter deal with Legacy for the broker to purchase all of his NASCAR equipment for $150 million. However, Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge Clifton Smith granted Legacy a restraining order preventing Ware from selling the organization to T.J. Puchyr, co-founder of Spire Motorsports and now a motorsports consultant. Puchyr was the one who negotiated the sale agreement for the disputed charter. Smith’s order extends a previous temporary restraining order he had issued, halting the sale. Smith ruled that Legacy demonstrated the likelihood of success on the merits of its case, that it would likely suffer irreparable harm unless an injunction was issued, and that the potential harm to Legacy outweighed any potential harm to Ware. Smith maintained the $5 million bail that Legacy presented. The trial is scheduled for January, but Legacy has filed a second lawsuit against Puchyr for interfering with its agreement with Ware. Legacy has also terminated its consulting agreement with Puchyr.
