Cody Ware reacts to brake failure, surprised by timing of late caution at Chicago street race

The final lap in the Chicago street race wasn’t without its drama. The timing of a late caution that came out because Cody Ware slammed into a tire barrier certainly made things interesting.

Ware lost his brakes going into Turn 6, with Shane van Gisbergen leading on the penultimate lap. Ware slammed hard into the tire barrier, going an estimated 93 miles per hour according to his on-board readouts.

But the caution flag didn’t come out for almost 35 full seconds. The timing allowed van Gisbergen to take the white flag, essentially sealing the race. Even Ware was surprised at how long it took for the caution to come out.

“Yeah, I mean especially given the speed of how fast we were going into the barrier,” Ware told Frontstretch. “Obviously I’m not going anywhere, there’s not much I can do at that point. But obviously at that point I’m just focused on getting out of the car and getting to a safe spot.”

Cody Ware was stuck under a pile of tires. According to Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, NASCAR was unaware of how fast he had gone into the barrier and was hoping he could dislodge himself like Kyle Larson did a year ago.

Had things played out a little differently, it’s entirely possible the race could have gone to overtime with an earlier caution flag. That would have bunched the field up a bit and forced van Gisbergen to defend his lead a little more.

But that’s not how it played out. Cody Ware broke down exactly what went wrong going into Turn 6.

“Stayed out on old tires but was able to hold on,” he said. “Unfortunately started picking up a left front chatter towards those last couple laps before the rotor blew, so not sure if it’s the chicken before the egg, but definitely whatever was going on with that left front is what ended up finally giving in that car going into Turn 6.

“So super frustrating, because it’s not been the best year for us. So being able to show up here, me not having run this race the past two times and feeling like we had good pace in the car, heartbreaking. But I think it’s still a day that we can build off of, especially going into another road course race next weekend with Sonoma. So hopefully we can take our notebook from this weekend and build on it for next weekend.”

As it finished, Cody Ware ended up P26 following the wreck into the tire barrier. A disappointing finish after an otherwise very solid day.

“We had an awesome day, big thanks to my team, the Arby’s Cheesesteak 51 was fast all day,” Ware said. “Track position, strategy. Just kept working our way through the field. Unfortunately I put us in a bad spot after qualifying. I had to work our way up there. But thought we had a solid top-15 day there. We were running in the top 10, close to the top 10 toward the end of that race.”