MOORESVILLE, N.C. (June 18, 2025) – After last Sunday’s inaugural Viva Mexico 250 at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City, NASCAR Cup Series crew members were back in their respective homes by Monday night, most in time for dinner.

Chris Avery, meanwhile, had just crossed back into the United States. Home was still another 20 hours away.

Avery drives the 18-wheeler for Rick Ware Racing (RWR) that carries the team’s No. 51 Ford Mustang Dark Horse to all 38 races on the Cup Series schedule. He departed Mexico City a few hours after the checkered flag dropped to begin his 1,974-mile trek back to RWR’s NASCAR facility in Concord, North Carolina.

“Time-wise, this was our longest trip of the season,” Avery said. “When we go out to Sonoma, California, that’s actually our longest trip mileage-wise, but this one was more involved because of the border crossing and just traveling in another country.”

The Cup Series’ race in Mexico City was its first international points-paying event in 67 years. There was some teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing when it came to the logistics of moving NASCAR’s small city to and from Mexico City in between the June 8 race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn and this Sunday’s race at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, a route which will total nearly 5,000 miles. Avery, however, already had a good idea of what to expect. He drove racing transporters internationally, specifically, all across Europe for teams competing in the World Endurance Championship (WEC).

“I’ve been driving for about 25 years,” Avery said. “I’ve done a lot of work in sportscar racing, and I had the chance to travel all over the world. Matter of fact, 20 years ago, we won the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”

Avery was the transporter driver for Champion Racing, which won the 2005 24 Hours of Le Mans with drivers JJ Lehto, Marco Werner and Tom Kristensen in an Audi R8. Ironically, Champion Racing was the last customer team to win the twice-around-the-clock endurance race until this past weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, AF Corse, stood atop the podium with its No. 83 Ferrari and drivers Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Philip Hanson.

“We started with right-hand drive trucks, and that was a little bit interesting and took some getting used to. Eventually, we got left-hand drive trucks and that definitely felt more natural,” Avery said.

How does one break into the world of hauling millions of dollars of racing equipment to events in the United States and abroad?

“As a kid, I watched races with my dad, and he was always a Bill Elliott fan, and a big Ford fan,” said Avery, who grew up in New Bern, North Carolina. “With that always in my head, I eventually got a job hauling showcars for a motorsports marketing agency, Cotter Promotions. Starting in 1997, I drove a big dually pickup all over the country, and one of the cars I hauled was for Cale Yarborough Motorsports. I was able to work with the team at some of the races. I worked my butt off and proved myself to them, and they invited me back to help some more and I became their hauler driver in ‘98.”

Driving a showcar hauler while operating with an always-on mentality earned Avery the nickname “Showtime.” He eventually transitioned away from Cale Yarborough Motorsports and pivoted to sportscar racing, where he did more than just drive.

“My wife and I created a trucking logistics company that specialized in motorsports,” Avery said. “For European teams coming to the U.S. to race, we operated their haulers. From the paperwork needed to get their equipment into the states to actually driving their trucks to races, we did it all.”

Avery returned to NASCAR in 2022, driving the Wood Brothers Racing transporter. He moved to Spire Motorsports in 2024 and joined RWR ahead of the 2025 season. His worldly background prepared him well for this Michigan-to-Mexico-to Pocono journey.

“The prep for Mexico started in January,” Avery said. “There were numerous – more than I can even explain – emails between NASCAR and the teams just to make sure that we had all of our paperwork and all of our manifests. And the paperwork was probably the single largest endeavor, which took months to get through, making sure everybody had passports, making sure everybody was cleared through customs, not only going into Mexico, but getting back into the United States too.

“Then, about a month out, we were looking more at the individual logistics of everything we needed to do. We put plans in place to make sure that when we got to Michigan to do our swap out, everything that needed to go on the hauler to Mexico actually made it onto the hauler, that every ‘T’ was crossed and every ‘I’ was dotted, so that we could be as efficient as possible, because there truly wasn’t any time to waste. We had to get on the road as quickly as we could out of Michigan and focus on the logistics of physically getting to Mexico.”

Avery and his hauler-driving counterparts made it to Mexico City on time, just like they manage to do week-in and week-out during the longest season in all of professional sports. With experience in their back pockets, returning to the United States was even quicker.

“As soon as we hit the U.S. border, it was standard operating procedure,” Avery said. “We have a day-and-a-half turnaround at the shop and we’ll be back on the road to Pocono on Thursday.”

The long hours, exacting details and tight timelines don’t faze Avery. After all, it is the routine of a NASCAR hauler driver.

“We’re the first ones to leave the shop. We’re the last ones to get back to the shop. Every morning when we’re at the racetrack, we’re the first one in the gate. I’m the one at the hauler every week. I make sure that the generator’s on, the coffee pot’s got fresh coffee in it, and I try to be standing at the back door to greet the guys as they show up to walk in the door every single week, every day of every weekend, that we’re out racing,” Avery said.

“Here in the Cup Series, the level of professionalism that these guys have, all of these hauler drivers, is second to none. I’ve never worked with a better, close-knit group of guys that are willing to do what they can to help you, regardless of what team you’re affiliated with.”

Cody Ware, driver of RWR’s No. 51 Parts Plus Ford Mustang, knows full well the value Avery and his brethren bring to the sport. After all, the work on the car and the preparation for the race is for naught if the car doesn’t show up on time at the racetrack.

“Without the truck driver, we can’t go racing,” Ware said. “That hauler is our home away from home. We spend three days a week in the hauler, some weeks more. Knowing that I can just sit down in the lounge, relax a little bit, and then 30 minutes before practice, grab my firesuit and shoes, because I have no doubt they’re going to be right there in my locker, like they always are, just gives you peace of mind when you have a million other things in your head about what you need to do out on the racetrack.”

Avery has already driven more than 22,000 miles this year as the season hits its halfway mark this weekend at Pocono. There are still many more miles ahead of him, with an estimated year-end tally of 68,000 miles.

“You’ve got to love racing to do this and make a career out of it,” Avery said. “I’m also lucky in that I have a very supportive wife who knows racing and understands its demands, especially as it relates to trucking. Gina keeps me grounded and organized at home so I can do my job seamlessly out here on the road.

“I love what I do and I’m going to do it until I get to the point that either I can’t or I’m not good at it.”

That’s a good thing, since it is a 586-mile drive to Pocono before the second-half of the NASCAR season gets underway, a run that will include westward trips to Sonoma, Las Vegas and Phoenix and northbound trips to Watkins Glen, New York, and Loudon, New Hampshire.

“I don’t rest until the season’s over,” said Avery, who after Pocono will return to RWR’s North Carolina base before heading further south to Atlanta for the June 28 Quaker State 400. “We do a lot in preparation to make sure that everything is ready to go, and that goes back to our preparation in January. We were doing things to this tractor and this trailer, maintenance-wise to prepare for all of these long hauls. We make no assumptions in this business. When there’s a question or a need, we address it. I’ll relax in November when I get back from Phoenix.”

Avery will arrive in Pocono early on Friday, and after getting the RWR hauler washed and its wheels polished, he will park inside the Cup Series garage that afternoon. On Saturday, Avery will welcome the crew when the garage opens at 7 a.m. EDT. On-track activity begins later that day with practice at 12:35 p.m. EDT followed by qualifying at 1:45 p.m. The Great American Getaway 400 goes green on Sunday at 2 p.m. All of the action will be broadcast live by Prime Video and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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 full-time team ownership. In 1995, Rick Ware Racing was formed, and with his wife Lisa by his side, Ware has since built his eponymous organization into an entity that competes full-time 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).

–RWR-