Judge Blocks Sale of Rick Ware’s NASCAR Team
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A North Carolina judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing Rick Ware from selling his NASCAR team amid a legal dispute related to one of his charters.
Legacy Motor Club and Rick Ware Racing had previously agreed that Ware would sell one of his two Cup Series charters, similar to franchises in other sports, to Legacy, owned by seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson. A charter ensures a car’s entry in the 38 NASCAR races and determines how a team is paid.
Johnson and Legacy were seeking the charter to expand to three entries and agreed to pay Ware 45 million dollars for one of his two charters. Ware currently uses one of them 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 stated that, because of that existing agreement, he agreed to sell a charter to Legacy in 2027.
Legacy filed a lawsuit, arguing that Ware signed a contract for a sale in 2026, which 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 buy all his NASCAR equipment for $150 million.
However, Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge Clifton Smith granted Legacy a court order preventing Ware from selling the organization to T.J. Puchyr, co-founder of Spire Motorsports, now a motorsports consultant. Puchyr was the intermediary in the disputed charter sale agreement.
Smith’s order extends a previous temporary restraining order that had suspended the sale. Smith ruled that Legacy demonstrated the likelihood of success on the merits of its case, that it was likely to suffer irreparable loss 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 had 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.
