Rick Ware Racing and Legacy NASCAR charter dispute comes to an end

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (CN) — Legacy Motor Club and Rick Ware Racing officially finalized the end of their cases over the sale of a racing charter.

In a joint dismissal, both Legacy and Rick Ware Racing permanently released their legal claims. The dismissal also resolves Rick Ware Racing’s countersuit against Legacy, and releases the $5 million bond that Legacy put down to secure several NASCAR Cup Series racing charters through trial.

Details of the settlement agreement between the parties were not disclosed.

The parties had previously announced in September that they had privately reached an agreement, asking the court to pause proceedings while they waited for certain undisclosed conditions of the settlement agreement to be met. The joint dismissal filed Thursday calls off a trial initially scheduled for January 2026.

The teams had been embroiled in a vicious legal case after Legacy filed suit in April. A contract had been signed selling Legacy a racing charter for the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series, but Rick Ware Racing was attempting to back out, Legacy argued, describing its competitor as “strapped for cash and unable to compete at Cup Series level.”

Rick Ware Racing slapped back with a countersuit in June, saying that it never planned to sell charter #27, and instead intended to sell Legacy charter #36. It was clear to Legacy that it could only sell a charter for the 2027 racing season, it said, because it wanted to retain a charter for Cody Ware to race under in 2026. The agreement the parties signed contained “several errors and misstatements of fact” and included references to “2025” that should have been “2026,” Rick Ware Racing said.

And after it was signed, Legacy began insisting that the agreement was selling charter #27, not #36, the team said. Rick Ware Racing also said it tried multiple times to return a non-refundable deposit of $750,000 that Legacy refused to accept. The sale to Legacy placed the price of the charter at $45 million, the highest amount for which a charter had ever been sold.

Counsel for Rick Ware Racing has emphasized that the dispute invalidated the contract as there was no “no meeting of the minds.”

After it was announced that T.J. Puchyr, one of the founders of Spire Motorsports, had agreed to purchase Rick Ware Racing mid-case, a Charlotte judge warned Rick Ware and his legal team that there could be “really serious ramifications,” if the company sells its two charter agreements after having told the court it had no plan to do so. Rick Ware Racing replaced its legal team shortly afterwards.

Legacy, who claimed it was blindsided by the sale, secured an injunction against the team in August, with a Charlotte judge stepped in to freeze Rick Ware Racing’s sale until litigation concluded. Legacy had previously won a 10-day temporary restraining order, posting a $5 million bond. Legacy arguedthat it needed to protect the charters pending success at trial, and counsel for Rick Ware Racing said that Legacy was trying to tie up the racing team’s charters.

Shortly before the teams announced their settlement, Rick Ware Racing filed a request to dismiss several of Legacy’s claims in early September.

Legacy also filed suit against T.J. Puchyr in July, claiming he induced Rick Ware Racing to break its contract with Legacy, and that he used insider information about Legacy’s business to put the company at a competitive disadvantage. The racing company has not filed to dismiss that case, which is slowly pending in Charlotte court.

Representatives for Rick Ware Racing and Legacy Motor Club did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Follow @SKHaulenbeek Follow @shaulenbeek.bsky.social