Tony Stewart, Gene Haas reflect on SHR closing after NASCAR championship race

Tony Stewart and Gene Haas reflected on Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) coming to an end now that the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season is over. While speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Stewart and Haas reacted to the end of SHR.

“When you think of how it started and where it ended up at the end of the day. I mean we did some pretty remarkable things as a group and had some great people that just all they cared about was winning races,” Stewart said. “That’s all they boiled down to. So it’s nice to have a group like that, do the things we did and just a hell of a journey.”

Haas talked about how he enjoyed working with Stewart. “We started off as a one-car team and became a two-car team and now we’re going to go back to a one-car team,” Haas said. “You know it’s just part of racing. You have your ups and downs. It was a heck of a ride with Tony, I tell you. I can’t look back and say I regret any part of it, so it was fun. It would have been nice to continue, but it just didn’t work out that way.”

Gene Haas launched the racing team in 2002 as Haas CNC Racing. It didn’t become Stewart-Haas Racing until 2009 when Tony Stewart teamed up with Haas to become a driver and co-owner. Stewart and Haas announced in May that SHR would shut down at the end of the year. In June, Haas revealed he would keep one of the team’s charters and name the organization Haas Factory Team.

Tony Stewart and Gene Haas make ‘difficult decision’ to close SHR

“We have made the difficult decision to close Stewart-Haas Racing at the conclusion of the 2024 season. It is a decision that did not come easily, nor was it made quickly,” Stewart and Haas said in their joint statement in May. “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 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.”