The biggest story around the world of NASCAR this week was Stewart-Haas Racing announcing it will shut down operations after the 2024 Cup Series season.
SHR’s tenure will end after 15 years and with two Cup Series championships and 69 wins. No driver was as synonymous with the race team for the majority of its run than Kevin Harvick, who won a championship in 2014 and took home 37 checkered flags as a member of SHR.
Harvick, now in the FOX Sports booth after retiring at the end of last season, said Sunday he was caught off guard by SHR closing its doors entirely.
“When you finally heard what the scenario was with all of it going away, I think that caught me a little off guard,” Harvick said. “You start to think back to all the things that happened at Stewart-Haas, and it was a great time in my life. Around a lot of racers, I had great teammates. Stewart-Haas Racing meant a lot to my career, getting the championship, all the wins.
“But my team — the team that I had at Stewart-Haas with Rodney Childers and all the guys on that team, that’s what I worked my whole career for. They let us build that and obviously last year I retired and moved on. But that’s the part I’ll remember the most is just the team that I had to win those races.”
Clint Bowyer on Stewart-Haas Racing coming to a close: ‘Hats off to them’
One of Harvick’s many teammates at SHR was Bowyer, his now broadcast booth partner at FOX Sports. Like Harvick, Bowyer has some fond memories of SHR, winning two races in four seasons. Bowyer touched on the legacy of the race team before offering some positive news to come from the situation.
“Hats off to them,” Bowyer said. “Lot of accolades, lot of things happened within those walls at Stewart-Haas Racing. Lot of good people, lot of good racing at that place. Championships, Kevin’s team, my team. You know, Danica [Patrick], her whole career was pretty much at Stewart-Haas Racing. A lot of good things and NASCAR became Gene Haas’s initial investment, I’m talking hundreds of millions of dollars that he invested into NASCAR. That’s not an easy void to fill.
“But the good news is with the charter systems they’re available. That means they’re going to some other place. That means these people, men and women, they’re gonna be looking for jobs. And those jobs are gonna happen at a different organization unfortunately and different walls, but I think those jobs will still be available. That’s the good thing.”
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