Since May, we’ve officially known Stewart-Haas Racing would cease to exist following the 2024 season, and the writing was on the wall in the months leading up to the announcement. But as the four-car race team took the checkered flag for the final time in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, it still seems surreal that the team, which was a juggernaut not all that long ago, will not field a team in 2025.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s demise is a sad refrain, and a stark reminder to always enjoy the good times in this sport. Because no matter how mighty you are, NASCAR is a humbling sport where even the mightiest fall from time to time.
Leading the way for SHR in the organization’s final race was Noah Gragson. The second-year driver recorded a solid 12th-place result and was proud of the fight that his No. 10 team, led by crew chief Drew Blickensderfer, showed on Sunday.
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“Today was a good improvement from where we were in practice, and then from where we qualified we just continued to stay in the fight and inch our way up front,” Gragson said. “We were looking at a top-10 day and just faded a little bit too much there on the last run.”
While he was happy to register a good result on the track, Gragson said the day was about much more than a finish in Sunday’s race at Phoenix Raceway.
“But, overall, today’s about the memories and the people,” Gragson explained. “The people of Stewart-Haas are in a challenging position right now with everything that’s gone on this year, but we all rally behind each other and support each other. And today is about all those people who are looking for jobs, who build these racecars, got our race team to the racetrack and back, and work so hard and sacrificed so much. So, overall, I’m super grateful and I’ll cherish this moment today.”
Gragson is set to move to Front Row Motorsports next season on a multi-year driving contract.
Josh Berry, and the team’s iconic No. 4 team, which won the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2014 with Kevin Harvick behind the wheel, came home with a 24th-place finish in its final race.
While Berry, who will move to the legendary Wood Brothers Racing team in 2025, missed out on Rookie of the Year honors by 107 points to Carson Hocevar, Berry was thankful for the resolve shown by the employees of SHR throughout the tumultuous season.
“Man, this is just such a special group and I can’t say thank you enough to everyone at SHR for all they did this season. We had some really tough circumstances and a lot of uncertainty, and the No. 4 group still showed up and gave it their all and I am just so thankful,” Berry said.
Berry’s crew chief Rodney Childers, who will move to Spire Motorsports as the crew chief for Justin Haley and the No. 7 team in 2025, expressed that the impending shutdown of Stewart-Haas Racing, the team he has called home since joining as Kevin Harvick’s crew chief in that magical championship-winning season in 2014, was tough mentally.
“Overall, it was a tough year, mentally just to realize this place was shutting down,” Childers told TobyChristie.com after the race. “The things that we’ve done together, the races that we’ve won, the poles that we’ve won, all of that stuff is super special to all of us. And really everybody here is a big family. We’ve watched each other grow up, we’ve watched our kids grow up. It’s tough, it really is. But I think all of us have been pretty fortunate to find something for next year. And we’re all going to stay family for a long time, and keep racing.”
Amid all of the uncertainty, a large portion of the employees opted to not attempt to jump ship from Stewart-Haas Racing midseason. While many of them have found new places of employment for next season, they stuck it out and saw out the finish of the season. Childers credited the ownership group for giving employees an incentive to stay until the end of the year, which gave them a fighting chance to compete down the stretch of the season.
“I mean, honestly, the ownership side of it treated everyone right. And gave us some incentive to be able to be here until the end of the year and to do the things that we did,” Childers explained. “Yeah, they looked after us pretty good. It’s sad, but I think we all have to be thankful for what we’ve had for the last 11 years for me, and some of them are, I think, 20 years now. It’s been a great run, and we’ve done a lot of special things.”
Chase Briscoe, who picked up his second career NASCAR Cup Series win this season in dramatic fashion in the final NASCAR Cup Series regular season race at Darlington Raceway to secure a berth in the Playoffs, says he wasn’t sure what he was going to feel going into the final race with a team owned by his childhood hero, Tony Stewart. Briscoe climbed into the car, ahead of a 29th-place finish, and was overcome with emotion immediately.
“I didn’t know really what the emotions were going to be per say. Like after the race, everybody is happy and laughing, but before the race, I got in the car and I started crying,” Briscoe recalled. “Like just realizing that you know — I literally used to dress up as Tony Stewart, right? And play iRacing video games. The fact that I have gotten to drive the No. 14 car for Tony you know just like literally a storybook. You couldn’t have written it any different or better. So, the fact I got to do that and to be the guy who has got to drive this 14 car the last four years And to get it in victory lane is crazy, if you would have told seven-year-old me that I was going to get to do those things.”
While it’s a sad ending, Briscoe has plenty to look forward to in 2025 as he will inherit the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE, which is being departed by Martin Truex Jr., who has retired from full-time competition. Still, Briscoe can’t help but feel the weight of the fate of Stewart-Haas Racing.
“Yeah, it’s bittersweet. Obviously, I have an incredible opportunity to go to next year, but you know this group of guys, and this family atmosphere we have here is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” Briscoe said. “The guys on the No. 14 car literally come to my son’s birthday parties, they’ve been to our gender reveals. They are really a part of my family. So, just knowing I don’t get to race with those guys anymore is sad for sure.”
Ryan Preece, the lone Stewart-Haas Racing NASCAR Cup Series driver, who has yet to announce any driving plans for the 2025 season has been linked to RFK Racing and a potential third chartered entry for the team next season. The stoic Preece offered thanks to his race team on the way out of Phoenix Raceway on Sunday evening.
“It was a good year and I really appreciate all the hard work,” Preece said.
While Preece finished the worst of the Stewart-Haas Racing cars on Sunday with a 37th-place finish due to an incident in the race, which hampered his No. 41 car, the hard-nosed racer really hit his stride in the final stretch of the 2024 season.
Preece picked up three of his five top-10s this year over the final nine races of the campaign. And his five top-10 finishes marked the most he’s ever scored in a season during his NASCAR Cup Series career.
Stewart-Haas Racing, which was founded heading into the 2009 NASCAR Cup Series season when Gene Haas lured Tony Stewart away from Joe Gibbs Racing by offering him ownership in the race team, will ride off into the sunset having won 70 NASCAR Cup Series races in 1,980 starts. The team accumulated 343 top-five finishes, 707 top-10s, and two championships (2011, and 2014).
