Stewart-Haas Racing to Shut Down NASCAR Cup Series Operations

On Tuesday, team co-owners Gene Haas and Tony Stewart released a joint statement explaining their decision to close the organization after 15 years.

“We have made the difficult decision to close Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the 2024 season. It is a decision that was not made easily or quickly. Running is a hard-working and humbling sport. It requires unwavering commitment and vast resources, with a 365-day mindset to be better than everyone else. This is part of what makes success so rewarding.

“But the commitment required to achieve peak performance while ensuring sustainability is incredibly demanding, and we have reached a point in our respective personal and professional lives where it is time to pass the torch.

“We are proud of all the victories and championships we have achieved since we joined forces in 2009, but what is even more special is the culture we have built and the friendships we have made while committing to a common cause: winning races and collecting trophies This is the same commitment we made to our staff, our partners and our fans this year, and this commitment will remain until the season finale in Phoenix.

“We have tremendous respect and appreciation for all of our employees, and we will work diligently to assist them during this transition to find new opportunities beyond the 2024 racing season.”

The charters?

Tuesday’s statement made no mention of the four charters Hass and Stewart currently hold in the Cup Series.

The charters, created with the start of the 2016 season, guarantee team registration each year for the 36 points-paying races and set a guaranteed minimum payment for each race. Payouts may change depending on the team’s ranking in terms of owner points.

However, the current charter contract expires at the end of this year and there is no new agreement yet. This means, in essence, that SHR will not be able to sell any charters until an agreement is reached.

Since the charters were introduced, their value has increased more than 10-fold. Spire Motorsports purchased the charter from Live Fast Motorsports for approximately $40 million last year.

For some time there has been an air of uncertainty surrounding the future of SHR.

Once a dominant force in the Cup Series, the team has failed to win a Cup race in nearly two years. When Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola retired from full-time competition late last year, major backers Busch Beer and Smithfield left as well.

The team entered 2024 with four young drivers and just one Cup victory between them. Although it showed a slight improvement overall compared to last year, the team is still far from the level expected from a four-car operation.

Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports are the only other teams with four charters. Both have won several races and occupy seven of the top eight places in the championship standings. The top SHR ​​driver is Chase Briscoe, 16th.

The news leaves an uncertain future for Briscoe, as well as teammates Noah Gragson, Josh Berry and Ryan Preece. There’s also intrigue regarding the future of SHR’s veteran crew chiefs, particularly Rodney Childers, who earned 40 wins from the top of the pit box, taking the bulk of SHR’s wins with Harvick. Previously, he guided Michael Waltrip Racing to its first ever victory with David Reutimann in 2009, as well as his last victory with Brian Vickers in 2013.

SHR has 69 victories at the Cup level and last visited Victory Lane with Harvick at Richmond Raceway in August 2022. Stewart delivered the team its first championship in 2011 while Harvick captured the team’s second title. team in 2014.

The fall of SHR has been stunning. He won 26 races between 2018 and 2020, winning a total of four in the three seasons since.

In 2020, all four SHR drivers made the playoffs. In 2023, three of their four teams missed the cut. Harvick was the only driver among the 16 drivers last year, but was eliminated after the first round.

Lingering Questions

Losing the SHR organization would also leave a significant void in Ford Performance’s NASCAR Cup program. SHR moved from Chevrolet to Ford beginning with the 2017 season and has become one of the manufacturer’s most successful organizations.

SHR’s current contract with Ford was set to expire at the end of this season.

SHR also runs a two-car Xfinity Series program with Cole Custer and Riley Herbst as drivers. An SHR spokesperson said the Xfinity program is expected to continue operating in some form in 2025, but not as an SHR entity.

Custer, 26, won the Xfinity championship in 2023 and remains in contention again this year. Herbst, 25, earned his first series victory last year driving for SHR and remains in the playoff race this season.