Kevin Harvick believes a spat between Tony Stewart and Gene Haas could’ve been the final nail in the coffin for Stewart-Haas Racing.
It’s been publicized that SHR will be closing their doors after 2024, and many thought that was a mutual decision, but Haas shocked the NASCAR world over the last week, revealing they’ll run a single-car Cup Series team in 2025, and a two-car Xfinity Series team. He’s not exactly leaving NASCAR, like Stewart.
Having raced for SHR, Harvick knows the duo better than most. He believes their time together had simply run it’s course, for a number of reasons.
“I think I should just put my notes on the table, because I have no idea what is happening here,” Harvick said, regarding the news of Gene Haas running a single-car team in the Cup Series in 2025, via the latest episode of Harvick’s Happy Hour. “Now I’m confused. Like, is there a spat? Is there something that happened with Gene and Tony? Was Tony just fed up, with not being able to do the things that he needed to do, from the competition side? Because think back to this. They tried to hire Kyle Larson. Tried to hire Kyle Busch. Both of those things got vetoed. One from Ford, and I don’t know the ins and outs of the whole Kyle Busch thing, but I don’t know. It’s very odd to me.
“I thought Front Row was going to move into the Haas shop, and now Haas is going to keep a charter, and two Xfinity teams. So it’s just really weird to me that it’s worked out this way, that Gene and Joe Custer are going to run — what’s it called, Factory Haas Racing? But I think when you look back at this whole thing, this is how Haas started. It was Gene Haas and Joe Custer, and they started up Haas, and they couldn’t — they didn’t run very well, so they brought in Tony Stewart, to bring in the notoriety, and the people, and the things that they needed to do to win a championship. Well, they brought in Tony Stewart, they won a championship. Tony brought all the people. Brought in myself and Rodney Childers. Won a championship. Brought in all the people. And now, it seems like, ‘Hey, we still want to race,’ and Tony was like, ‘Screw it, I’m out of here. I’m not going to race this way, with whatever’s happening,’ and moved on in life, and now they’re right back to where they started. So I think it’ll be very difficult for them to run this team competitively.”
Alas, it’s certainly shocking Gene Haas will remain in NASCAR while Tony Stewart exits the sport, but Kevin Harvick makes some salient points for how we got here.
Regardless, it’ll be a challenge for Haas’ Cup Series team to remain competitive in 2025, but perhaps they can shock some people, without Stewart’s help. Who their driver is remains to be seen though.
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