Stewart-Haas Racing Will Shutter NASCAR Operations After 2024

Stewart-Haas Racing will officially close at the conclusion of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season, the team announced in a joint statement from co-owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas on Tuesday. In the statement, the pair said "It is a decision that did not come easily, nor was it made quickly."

Stewart met with the SHR team in person at the Kannapolis, North Carolina, shop to deliver the heartbreak.

Rumors of SHR's demise trace back to early January when Stewart and business partners shuttered the SRX racing series. That came a month after Stewart joined the NHRA grid in place of his wife, making him an owner-driver at an unrelated program in another series.

"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," the pair said in the release. "It's part of what makes success so rewarding... But the commitment needed 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.

We're proud of all the wins and championships we've earned since joining together in 2009, but even more special is the culture we built and the friendships we forged as we committed to a common cause - winning races and collecting trophies."

Stewart is currently the owner and full-time racer of his NHRA team and owns and operates the famous Ohio dirt track Eldora Speedway. With both SRX and SHR shuttered, Stewart has now greatly reduced what was once a wide range of post-retirement commitments

All four charters that SHR held will be sold off to competitors, giving the opportunity for smaller teams to expand or a new team to break into the Cup sphere.

SHR employs around 300 people to support their four Cup teams, and while many will find positions at new teams or potentially move with the charter transfers, it's an uneasy time for everyone who just received the news. SHR has assured that they will work towards helping their employees transition out of their positions and find new opportunities.

All four drivers at SHR, Chase Briscoe, Noah Gragson, Josh Berry, and Ryan Preece, are relatively unproven. Each will now be a free agent next year, making the remainder of the season an audition for all four to prove they belong at NASCAR's top level going forward.

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