Legacy Motor Club's Erik Jones was stripped of his 24th place finish in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway when it was discovered that his No. 43 Toyota did not meet the minimum weight requirement in post-race technical inspection.
As a result, Jones was dropped from 24th to 38th place in the race results, and all 14 drivers who initially finished behind him were promoted by one spot.
Among those drivers was Rick Ware Racing's Cody Ware, who entered the 400-lap race around the four-turn, 0.526-mile (0.847-kilometer) Ridgeway, Virginia oval, the seventh race of the 2025 season, with just 27 points to his name, by far the lowest among the 36 full-time drivers.
In fact, Ware still had fewer points to his name than Legacy Motor Club owner Jimmie Johnson, who scored 34 with his third place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway and has not competed since.
Six weeks later, Ware has finally drawn level with Johnson on points, and it happened because of Jones' disqualification.
Ware initially finished Sunday's race in 31st place, good for six points to bring his total to 33 on the year. But the post-race penalty to Jones promoted him to 30th, so he scored seven, bringing him level with Johnson.
Ware, of course, was given his own 10-point penalty after the Daytona 500 due to an unsecured ballast on the No. 51 Ford, so he would have been ahead of Johnson heading into the race in terms of total points scored anyway.
But even without that penalty, he only would have passed Johnson in the standings in last weekend's race at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He entered that race with 24 points and scored three more, so he would have wound up with 37 without the penalty.
Johnson only has one more start scheduled this season. He is set to make his 700th career Cup Series start in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in late May. That race is the 13th race on the 2025 schedule and the first set to be shown live on Amazon Prime Video.
This coming Sunday's race is the Goodyear400, which is set to be shown live on Fox Sports 1 from Darlington Raceway starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. As long as Ware competes and is not penalized, he should finally pass Johnson in the standings. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss it!