- Team Earned First zMAX CARS Tour Late Model Win with Driver Luke Baldwin and Second Straight American Flat Track SuperTwins Victory with Rider Briar Bauman
MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 28, 2025) – In the span of a few hours this past Saturday, Rick Ware Racing (RWR) added two more trophies to its mantle. Driver Luke Baldwin won the zMAX CARS Tour Pro Late Model race at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, North Carolina, before Progressive American Flat Track (AFT) rider Briar Bauman won the Mission AFT SuperTwins feature at California’s Ventura Raceway.
Baldwin’s win was his first on the CARS Tour and the first for RWR. His 1.232-second margin of victory over runner-up Jade Avedisian capped an impressive outing for Baldwin as the 18-year-old set a new track record en route to the pole. He took the lead on lap 55 of the 100-lap race and never looked back.
“I just drove the wheels off the thing,” said Baldwin, son of RWR competition director Tommy Baldwin. “It was pretty free all the way throughout the race, but we can be that sideways and still be that fast.
“I want to thank Rick and everyone at Rick Ware Racing for giving me this car to drive and letting me do what I need to do with it. It was my first race in the car. I’ve had some decent runs in a full-fendered racecar before, but I always managed to mess it up somehow. I tried to knock the fence down off of (turn) four one time when I had a 15-car-length lead. I tried to give it up, but the racecar was too strong, too good.”
Team owner Rick Ware established the late model program during the off-season and it debuted in early February at New Smyrna (Fla.) Speedway during the World Series of Asphalt. Drivers Cody Ware, Carson Ware and Mason Maggio have all driven the No. 51 late model, with Baldwin getting his first start in the No. 51 Parts Plus Ford Mustang Saturday in Rougemont.
“To get our first CARS Tour win really means a lot. It’s a really competitive series and you’ve got to be on your game,” Rick Ware said.
“We started this late model program because we believed we could build something strong, and to see Luke Baldwin put our car in victory lane in his first start with us is incredible. He drove his heart out, set a track record, won the pole, and showed the kind of grit and speed we know this team is capable of. Moments like this make all the hard work worth it. I’m really proud of everyone who has contributed to this program.”
Three time zones away in Southern California, Bauman maintained RWR’s winning ways. The two-time Grand National Champion rode his No. 3 Parts Plus/Latus Motors Harley-Davidson XG750R to victory for a second straight race. Bauman won March 29 at the Senoia Short Track in Georgia, delivering Harley-Davidson’s first win with the XG750R since its original debut in 2016. Now, in just a month’s span, Harley-Davidson has its second win care of Bauman, who won with a .881-of-a-second margin over next-best finisher Dallas Daniels.
“I’m just proud of everyone on this Rick Ware Racing team. We’re just digging on this thing,” said Bauman, who now has 28 career SuperTwins wins, the last six coming since joining RWR in 2023. “I don’t know if it’s a renaissance or a fairy tale, but we’re just doing our thing.”
Bauman’s back-to-back victories ties him with Daniels for the most wins this season, and it gives him an edge in the championship, with the 29-year-old holding a three-point advantage (84-81) over Daniels four races into the 16-race season.
“What Briar is doing right now is something really special,” Ware said. “To bring Harley-Davidson back to victory lane not just once, but twice in a month’s time, speaks to his heart, his history and his tenacity. Seeing Briar bring that Harley back to the front is incredibly meaningful for all of us. We’re proud to be a part of it.”
The respective victories by Baldwin and Bauman represented wins four and five on the season for RWR. In addition to Bauman’s two SuperTwins triumphs, his AFT Singles teammate, Chase Saathoff, also won March 29 at Senoia. That victory was Saathoff’s first with RWR and the fourth of his career. The 19-year-old joined RWR this year after spending 2022-2024 as an independent AFT Singles rider.
Not to be outdone by his two-wheeled counterparts, NHRA Top Fuel driver Clay Millican has also contributed to RWR’s 2025 win tally. On March 30 in the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals at In-N-Out Pomona Dragstrip in California, Millican drove his RWR-prepared Mighty Fire Breaker/Parts Plus dragster to a final round victory. It was Millican’s eighth career Top Fuel win in the NHRA Mission Food Drag Racing Series, the last five of which have come since he joined RWR in late 2022.
With those races in the rearview mirror, RWR continues pressing forward. AFT races this Saturday at the Silver Dollar Short Track in Chico, California, while its NASCAR Cup Series team competes Sunday in the Würth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. The NHRA Mission Food Drag Racing Series gets a two-week break before returning to action May 15-18 at Route 66 Raceway in the Chicago suburb of Elwood, Illinois.
About Rick Ware Racing:
Rick Ware has been a motorsports mainstay for more than 40 years. It began at age 6 when the third-generation racer began his driving career and has since spanned four wheels and two wheels on both asphalt and dirt. Competing in the SCCA Trans Am Series and other road-racing divisions led Ware to NASCAR in the early 1980s, where he finished third in his NASCAR debut – the 1983 Warner W. Hodgdon 300 NASCAR Grand American race at Riverside (Calif.) International Raceway. More than a decade later, injuries would force Ware out of the driver’s seat and into fulltime team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes fulltime in the elite NASCAR Cup Series while simultaneously campaigning successful teams in the Top Fuel class of the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series, Progressive American Flat Track and FIM World Supercross Championship (WSX).