Stewart-Haas Racing will cease operations in NASCAR at the end of the 2024 season, the team announced May 28.
Team owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas made the news official via a joint statement.
“We have made the difficult decision to close Stewart-Haas Racing at the conclusion of the 2024 season,” Stewart and Haas’ joint statement reads. “It is a decision that did not come easily, nor was it made quickly.
“Racing is a labor-intensive, humbling sport. It requires unwavering commitment and vast resources, with a 365-day mindset to be better than everyone else. It’s part of what makes success so rewarding. But the commitment to extract maximum performance while providing sustainability is incredibly demanding, and we’ve reached a point in our respective personal and business lives where it’s time to pass the torch.”
SHR’s statement did not disclose what will happen to its four NASCAR Cup Series charters. It fields cars for Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece in 2024.
Through 14 races, Briscoe paces the team with one top five and five top 10s while sitting 16th in points. Gragson also has a top five and five top 10s, while Berry has one top five and two top 10s and Preece has a top 10.
The team also operates a pair of NASCAR Xfinity Series entries for Cole Custer and Riley Herbst. Custer is third in points through 12 races with six top fives and nine top 10s, and Herbst boasts two top fives and four top 10s.
SHR entered the Cup Series in 2009 when Stewart, then also a driver, moved to the organization, which was previously known as Haas CNC Racing beginning in 2002.
The team boasts dozens of wins in the Cup, Xfinity and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It also has a pair of Cup championships via Stewart in 2011 and Kevin Harvick and 2014, and it’s the defending Xfinity champion with Custer at the helm.
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Well, bye.
That sure escalated quickly. There were rumors for a while they were likely to downsize, but the idea of them folding completely seemed to start within the last couple of weeks. Ultimately, I think Harvick and Almirola walking away at the same time left them with such a sponsorship deficit that was too much to overcome if they intended to continue operations. Then there’s the relationship with Ford. Finding sponsors is not always easy, but SHR always struck me as being deficient in that regard compared to other major teams. It’s not like Busch left the sport, they just found a new team. Anyway, the rumors that this was going to happen did seem believable, so the only surprise here is it being official already.
Life moves on. Now the rumors and speculations start to become ridiculous.
IF 1 MORE GOD DAMN TEAM LEAVES,THEN I WILL SUE THEM BECAUSE THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tony Stewart has a wife and is a soon to be father Drag racing has displaced his interest Nascar changes along with sponsorship woes have changed his focus Gene Haas wants to focus on his F1 interests Charter value is probably at its peak as well Wish him well
No use in hanging around if you’re not going to run the team.
How much will they get when they sell their charters?
i was wondering if there would be a “fire sale discount” on the fee for one of the charters. with how teams struggle financially, i can’t see someone having an extra $30-$50 million laying around.
Could there be an auction for the charters?
This is what happens to teams when the pie is cut and your piece is no where as big as the sanctioning body or Track owners. What people don’t realize is small section of the pie is distributed amongst all the teams therefore the teams have to have multi sponsorships just to survive. This is very hard with inflation affecting everyone. Also with the cost of this new car, all the money the teams where suppose to save on employees and insurance etc has not offset the cost of buying all the single source supplier parts to make this car. Therefore anyone looking to get into NASCAR in the near future will have to have very deep pockets. I look for this not to be last domino to fall over the next few years which is a shame.
It’s been that way forever. The teams have always been considered independent contractors. I’m not saying that’s fair, and I agree with everything you said, I’m just pointing out that it’s not like this just happened overnight.
It’s taken 20 or so years of piss poor leadership at NA$CAR – diminishing the product and alienating long term fans which has resulted in a massive decline of viewership and destruction of ROI for sponsors. No sponsors, no NA$CAR.
It really is a shame. NASCAR was a great, entertaining, accessible product with strong fan loyalty and legions of fans. It had everything going for it. Everyone used to set aside race day (and vacation days) for NASCAR, but not anymore.
Stewart and Haas have both been more interested in other ventures for the past few years and it has shown in the decline of the performance in the NASCAR effort. This was no surprise to me.