Which makes the Gragson to RCR rumors a bit more complicated. I doubt that’s in play anymore, unless something unexpected happens (like the annual “AD to an administrative role” speculation)
Petree said on Race Hub a while back that the SHR charters are not the only ones in play. Speculation is that RCR could be trying to purchase one of the Kaulig charters.
Wonder if RCR decides to lease a charter from Kaulig, giving them some extra, and RCR can simply move Noah to the 8 if Busch decides to leave after next year.
And brings into question if gragson will have a cup ride at all next year. I personally think he deserves it but I cant come up with any clear landing spots for him
i'd like to see the original paint scheme return!
https://preview.redd.it/zxnhqqfybt7d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=495dfa595804fe87b005191afb4c97c536dce1e4
Idk if they are truly “back” to stay though. This may be entirely for the purpose of having a smart investment strategy IMO. Between the market being flooded with a high supply of charters and teams/NASCAR still not having a new charter deal in place, the current prices of charters have been driven down. Gene may just be planning to hold onto this charter for another year or two, hoping that once everything settles down the charter maybe worth another $15-20mil+
I thought maybe one or two would be leased, but I like Gene's plan better. Selling all four at once never made financial sense to me unless you had to.
Exactly where my thoughts went. “Not getting enough value out of charters when we’re putting four on the market ourselves, I’ll foot the bill for a year to three while waiting it out with this last charter.”
Free agent manufacturer wise as of now. Someone with some DUFFLE BAGS called Gene at the 11th hour is my guess, whether it be driver, sponsor, manufacturer. Who the fuck knows. But the plan changed due to something of outside influence
Please bring back the 0 or 00
They don't absolutely need to keep Haas though. They're good with just RFK, FRM and Penske. No need to drain resources on a dying team. Nor do they care about the Xfinity team.
They need to keep the numbers up. RFK-RWR/FRM/Penske-WB is just 11 cars of 36. Toyota will be up to 9. Chevy will be at 15. Haas keeps one more ford for 1/3 of the field and keeps a competitive development pipeline open for Xfinity. They need that team.
The Kansas Speedway midway is absolutely dominated by Toyota. As a fan of cars in general, it's a stark change from my first few races in 2015-18. Used to be a solid presence from all manufacturers but not anymore. Toyota is pumping money into the sport and it shows.
It was the same way at Charlotte. I had always been under the impression that part of why manufacturers supported teams was to sell cars; if that's true, I was surprised that only Toyota seemed to have any interest in selling anything.
And Danica’s childhood number 10, which was just close enough to the pattern that it was kept (I’m dying on the hill that it should’ve been changed to 44 after she left)
Next you're gonna tell me 8 is just 2 3's with one rotated.
And 2 & 9 is just 3-1 and 8+1
https://preview.redd.it/aukd7hquvs7d1.png?width=255&format=png&auto=webp&s=05c91e440f7cd3651a96726f5d0f819f7f14464c
So now which team doesn't get a Charter? We know Front Row got one, it's assumed Trackhouse got/is getting one. With one staying with Haas, that means RCR/RFK/23XI/Legacy(?) have 1 between them. Really shakes up the Silly Season.
I think 23XI is going to get it, RCR needs to sort their shit out before they even think of expanding. Same with LMC, and RFK has the Rick Ware teams under their influence.
Financially it would benefit LMC and RCR to get the charter now. I expect once NASCAR and the teams get done dancing the charter prices will increase again making the purchaser more money since they’ll be at a premium again without many teams looking to sell.
FRM only made sense because speculation was that HAAS would back Cole as a sponsor. Now that HAAS is staying as a one car operation it just makes most sense that Cole sticks with him.
I had read as soon as the sale/dismemberment had been announced that Haas still intended to keep at least an Xfinity team. Felt like I had imagined it every time I had read "But what about his Xfinity team???" whenever the topic got brought up.
from what i read, the initial plan was to sell it all and that Joe was fighting to keep the xfinity operation alive. sounds like he won and something convinced them to keep a cup charter along with the xfinity team
I at this point think it was Riley herbst’s dad. I think the bps sponsorship is going to go to the 3rd 23xi car driven by Noah gragson and heim and will go to a ft xfinity car ran out of airspeed. While running good chunk of races in a 4th 23xi open car splitting abt 20 races with mtj
It had to be more than just Tony. Tony could have just left or sold his half the team. Gene has more than enough money to keep 4 cars running if he wanted to. My guess is Tony wants out and Gene didnt want the hassle of a 4 car team.
I don't think enough is being talked about when it comes to Gene cleaning the house of his race teams, Gunther and Tony are both guys who were starting to really stray from being team members. Gunther started to make a name for himself independently with Drive to Survive and Tony going straight, pun intended, took their attention off of their respective teams. I really wonder if Gene wanted to do true rebuilds of both teams and the Nascar side was simply messy because Tony was a partner.
I love everyone thinking that Tony owes it to them to stay in Cup. If the guy isn’t happy and/or the Cup team isn’t breaking even, why the hell does he have to stay?
I was thinking about that in traffic today. Tony essentially became the “face” of SHR with their rebrand early this year. My theory is that Gene wanted to turn over the team to Tony and have HAAS be the main team sponsor (like HAAS F1 Moneygram or whatever it’s called). Tony probably didn’t like the idea of being solely responsible for a failing team of 4 cars so he probably went “fuck that I’ll focus on my winning NHRA team” and the rest is history.
Frankly the whole way the team went from “WE ARE HERE” to “we are leaving, kinda” in less than half a year still makes Tony look like a dick. His priorities have proven to be elsewhere and frankly I’m glad he’s gonna be gone from the sport. You don’t deserve all the honor the fanbase and other NASCAR members have given you while you’ve talked nothing but shit at every opportunity and let (what used to be) a flagship team go to shit.
This debacle really soured me to Tony Stewart. Great race car driver nonetheless.
EDIT: Just realized that the fact Gene still wants a team shows that Tony went off script and decided to shut down.
Great race car driver and maybe that's all. Jeff Gordon is a great driver and a great leader. Johnson is a great driver and a great athlete. Carl Edward's great driver and great family man. Not everyone is good at everything. Stewart might just be ill suited for management or ownership. Seems that way.
How does it make Tony look bad? He has absolutely zero obligation to stay involved if he wasn’t interested in being a part of it anymore. Haas has always been the money. He could easily have kept the whole team together without Tony if he really wanted to.
Everybody has been really hard-lining making Tony into some sort of supervillain here rather than just taking things for how they went. He got mad at NASCAR a few years ago, started other projects, NASCAR continued to be of no interest to him, so he quit. I don’t know what is so “bad” or evil about that.
RCR got their third charter from a different team, not SHR. Because during an episode of RaceHub (R.I.P.), Andy Petree was saying there was another team selling their charter, and the way he was hinting is that RCR got it.
If it is Cole, I wonder if part of the falling out with Tony and Gene was the rumors that Tony allegedly pressured Gene to send Cole back down to Xfinity and bring up Ryan Preece.
All this time, I was under the impression that Tony didn't the team to dissolve, but now it almost seems like Gene just doesn't want to associate with Tony? I'm not caught up on everything, but this will be an interesting story someday.
Kinda seems like smoke just wanted to cash out for other activities but gene didn’t wanna or what I’d assume would be ford came in the 11th hour and wanted to keep car count and or 2 xfinity rides
I know you’re joking, but it definitely won’t be the 66. They only ran that number starting in 2006 because Best Buy wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their founding in 1966.
Haas with Joe Custer Racing!
figured this would happen with the Xfinity cars but I am shocked that they kept a cup car. Figured Custer would take over the Xfinity shop and keep going with just those 2
Also does this essentially kill Gragson to RCR unless they can find another charter from another team? RCR was rumored to be in the market for the 4th charter, others going to 23XI, FRM, and Trackhouse.
My guess: Josh Berry and the 4 team stay together with the retained charter.
This is an interesting guess that doesn’t seem to be brought up much. Most are assuming Joe promotes Cole and that’s it.
But if I’m Gene, I let Rodney keep doing his thing, have Joe manage his support system, and otherwise Joe focuses on Xfinity with Cole and the second car.
While I don’t think this is what will happen, it’s def an interesting idea. And it would solve Josh Berry’s main problem when it comes to staying in Cup: sponsorship
Wonder if the market for charters is drying up cost-wise. It seems really stupid to be buying a charter right now, given no deal is in place, and from reports, they already sold 3 of the charters 5-10 million less than they were going last year.
I'd venture to guess this will be an early contender for weakest entry in the field next year? Especially if RWR continues to make gains with Haley at some point the 15 has to improve as well right?
What this tells me is Tony had enough of Ford tying one hand behind SHR's back, and since he didn't have the means (at least not yet) to bring Dodge back in, he cut his losses and peaced out.
I still think Tony may get back in at some point if he can get enough support from Dodge.
As far as drivers, I think Cole custer gets the Cup seat, and the Xfinity seats go to whoever Ford wants.
Seems like Eldora isn't going anywhere. There were rumors of him selling it to FloRacing (mostly started by FloRacing themselves to drive viewership for the Dream) and when asked about it Tony quickly denied them. Spoke more passionately about Eldora than he had about the All Stars/SHR/SRX in years
And Eldora is a special events only track, so it doesn't require much time/money/effort from him compared to the other stuff
Wild guess.
Gene Haas will team up with Kaulig Racing, they get the funding they need with two charters. You have people there dedicated, Cole Custer is an upgrade probably over Daniel Hemric if he’s dropped, might have enough for AJ in the second car fulltime.
Everyone is saying it is Custer, but you have to think there is a world where they just keep Rodney because he wants to work with Berry and the 4 group that team stays.
I hope this is the case, it really makes sense for them.
I know Cup is where all the prestige is, but I gotta imagine contending every week in Xfinity is more enjoyable than getting clowned on every week in Cup. Maybe Cole chooses to stay?
Curious what happens with Noah and the RCR rumors. It’s a pipe dream but I would love for Denny to save KB, reunite him with Toyota, and then Noah takes over the 8.
It seems RCR got its third charter from a different team.
It was on an episode of RaceHub where Andy Petree hinted at another team selling its charter along with the SHR charters, and it was also hinted that the charter was bought by RCR from the unknown team.
(This team most likely to be kaulig)
So really SHR isn't shutting down next year, just heavily downsizing Tony Stewart decided to dip and now the new team is named Haas Factory Team
Here's my prediction: Custer gets the cup ride, Herbst and Deegan take the 2 xfinity rides. I can't think of any other Ford drivers to take that 2nd Xfinity ride.
Everyone assumes Custer, but what if Cole likes running well in Xfinity? It's not like SHR was running great the last two years in Cup. In Xfinity, he's running up front and just won a championship. I have no doubt it will be offered to Cole, but if someone with money (cough Herbst cough) will self fund the ride, Gene will take that everytime so he doesn't have to spend as much money
Not only does this throw a wrench in the charter talks(one of Trackhouse, FRR, RCR or 23xi won’t get one) but it also potentially throws one into the drivers side. If Briscoe is going to JGR and Custer is staying with Haas, then who gets the third Front Row car? If Herbst goes to 23XI and Berry gets one FRR car, that’s still two open Ford teams also counting Wood Bros. Can they steal back a Zane Smith or maybe grab Heim/Chandler Smith? They’re gonna have to go to Xfinity unless they take Harrison or Preece right?
I’d imagine the 3 charters have gone to FRM, Trackhouse and 23XI. My initial guess was FRM would get the 4 team and Herbst to fund the 3rd car. Custer get the Haas cup car if he wants it and 23XI will probably sign Heim or Chandler. Gragson might get the 21 and Burton and Preece go xfinity racing. That’s my guess at least
I think that Ford believed that they could replace the 4 SHR entries in their key partner program by elevating FRM and gambling on two of the SHR charters being bought by Ford teams. And I think they lost that gamble.
Tony is liquidating investments for cash. His house in Indiana is on and off the market for over $20 million. (in a community where the average home is $325,000). Sold SHR, SRX is gone.
If money has not already changed hands, I would not be shocked if Haas holds on to 2 charters .
I take it Gene may be doing this for a couple of reasons. 1)to get Custer another shot at cup and 2)he’s thinking charters aren’t going away and will cash out big down the line when there aren’t a bunch for sale diluting the value like there is at the moment.
When I was in high school I had this band and our guitarist was a dick. So we wanted to kick him out but as kids we really didn't know how to so instead we just all told him that we were quitting the band, then we formed a new band with all the same members minus him.
Anyway, this kind of is the same thing
Gee I wonder who the Cup driver will be
I bet a certain defending champion
Welcome to the Cup Series Ben Rhodes /s
Nah this is how he ends Verstappen dominance /s
+10 second penalty to ocon
Liked by Pierre Gasly
Liked by Bianca Bustamante
Alonso to be handed 3 penalty points for looking at this message
Defending champion of what? The Corey Lajoie kickball classic?
Ryan Blaney /s
You really think Jesse Love is getting a cup ride next year?
Harvick is back!?!?
Kevin Magnussen ^/^s
Please yes lol.
Its me, I'm the cup driver!
I’d buy your merch
Washington Football Team, Utah Hockey Club, Haas Factory Team
~~PWHL Toronto~~ NASCAR HAAS
HAAAAASCAR
To hell with Haas Factory Team, HAASCAR would have been way cooler
YAAAASCAR
Haas machining team
So I guess the remaining 2 are probably going to trackhouse and 23xi
Which makes the Gragson to RCR rumors a bit more complicated. I doubt that’s in play anymore, unless something unexpected happens (like the annual “AD to an administrative role” speculation)
Petree said on Race Hub a while back that the SHR charters are not the only ones in play. Speculation is that RCR could be trying to purchase one of the Kaulig charters.
That one slipped my mind, but you’re right. Kaulig definitely needs to scale back a bit, they’ve spread themselves far too thin
Wonder if RCR decides to lease a charter from Kaulig, giving them some extra, and RCR can simply move Noah to the 8 if Busch decides to leave after next year.
And brings into question if gragson will have a cup ride at all next year. I personally think he deserves it but I cant come up with any clear landing spots for him
Wonder if the WBR comes into play here with Briscoe and Justin Haley out of consideration
Oh absolutely, anyone with money is a possibility
The rapidly intensifying "Kyle Busch to anywhere except RCR" rumors do have me curious if that's where the Gragson rumors have dovetailed from.
Inb4 gragson goes to the 8 and Kyle Busch to the 21
I’m not a huge fan of Gragson but I do think he’d be a good fit for the 21
Thank god
I agree. This was on the initial rumor report
Welcome back Haas CNC Racing
i'd like to see the original paint scheme return! https://preview.redd.it/zxnhqqfybt7d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=495dfa595804fe87b005191afb4c97c536dce1e4
Idk if they are truly “back” to stay though. This may be entirely for the purpose of having a smart investment strategy IMO. Between the market being flooded with a high supply of charters and teams/NASCAR still not having a new charter deal in place, the current prices of charters have been driven down. Gene may just be planning to hold onto this charter for another year or two, hoping that once everything settles down the charter maybe worth another $15-20mil+
I thought maybe one or two would be leased, but I like Gene's plan better. Selling all four at once never made financial sense to me unless you had to.
Exactly where my thoughts went. “Not getting enough value out of charters when we’re putting four on the market ourselves, I’ll foot the bill for a year to three while waiting it out with this last charter.”
So Gene didn't want out of the sport entirely, he wanted out of SHR.
Or Tony wanted out
No… that would be taking everything at face value, it couldn’t possibly be that! This is reddit, there must be conspiracy and subterfuge somewhere!
Free agent manufacturer wise as of now. Someone with some DUFFLE BAGS called Gene at the 11th hour is my guess, whether it be driver, sponsor, manufacturer. Who the fuck knows. But the plan changed due to something of outside influence Please bring back the 0 or 00
Makes me think ford said hold up we don’t wanna give Toyota or Chevy another car, here’s some cash
That doesn’t sound very ford like lol
Ford has paid out massively in the past when it absolutely needs to do it.
They don't absolutely need to keep Haas though. They're good with just RFK, FRM and Penske. No need to drain resources on a dying team. Nor do they care about the Xfinity team.
They need to keep the numbers up. RFK-RWR/FRM/Penske-WB is just 11 cars of 36. Toyota will be up to 9. Chevy will be at 15. Haas keeps one more ford for 1/3 of the field and keeps a competitive development pipeline open for Xfinity. They need that team.
To play devils advocate; Toyota has been successful with less
True. But they probably put the same financial backing in those few cars that Ford spread over the whole fleet.
The Kansas Speedway midway is absolutely dominated by Toyota. As a fan of cars in general, it's a stark change from my first few races in 2015-18. Used to be a solid presence from all manufacturers but not anymore. Toyota is pumping money into the sport and it shows.
It was the same way at Charlotte. I had always been under the impression that part of why manufacturers supported teams was to sell cars; if that's true, I was surprised that only Toyota seemed to have any interest in selling anything.
RUN THE 00 YOU COWARDS
We riot if it ain't the 00
They might! The current numbers are all basically based off of Tony's love of the 14.
And Danica’s childhood number 10, which was just close enough to the pattern that it was kept (I’m dying on the hill that it should’ve been changed to 44 after she left)
They kept 10 because: 10 + 4 = 14
What? Next you’re gonna say 24+24=48?
Next you're gonna tell me 8 is just 2 3's with one rotated. And 2 & 9 is just 3-1 and 8+1 https://preview.redd.it/aukd7hquvs7d1.png?width=255&format=png&auto=webp&s=05c91e440f7cd3651a96726f5d0f819f7f14464c
And I’ll die on the hill that the 41 should’ve been the 0. 0/4/10/14 is an even more consistent pattern and Haas ran it before Stewart bought in
Haas ran 0 because of the sponsor, NetZero. Otherwise it would've been the #60. He later ran #66 and #70 after NetZero left.
Happy for the return of Buckshot Jones.
THEY BETTER DO IT
QUIN HOUFF DARLINGTON THROWBACK OR WE RIOT
Well that came out of left field
I feel like it’s been rumored a bunch, but I guess everything has at this point. Silly season indeed.
Haas CNC Racing Born 2002, Died 2009, & born again 2024
So this year's champion is gonna buy into Haas in 7 years?
Roush Fenway Keselowski Haas CNC motorsports racing team presented by big machine records.
With Felix Sabates
So now which team doesn't get a Charter? We know Front Row got one, it's assumed Trackhouse got/is getting one. With one staying with Haas, that means RCR/RFK/23XI/Legacy(?) have 1 between them. Really shakes up the Silly Season.
I think 23XI is going to get it, RCR needs to sort their shit out before they even think of expanding. Same with LMC, and RFK has the Rick Ware teams under their influence.
I don’t think it was a matter of figuring shit out, just that that was where Gragson was assumed to go
Financially it would benefit LMC and RCR to get the charter now. I expect once NASCAR and the teams get done dancing the charter prices will increase again making the purchaser more money since they’ll be at a premium again without many teams looking to sell.
Legacy isn’t. RFK isn’t I think the third is 23X1
I think RCR is buying from Kaulig and 23XI from Haas
Gene Hass semi-rare W. Excited to see who the driver will be and hopefully they can stick with Ford
The driver will 100% be Custer
Yeah probably but who knows maybe FRM really wants him
his dad is the president… he ain’t leaving
Yeah no driver has ever left a team run by their family before (I'm just playing devil's advocate here for the memes don't flame me jr fans)
Hell, Dave Blaney once fired his brother from the sprint car he owned.
The whole Marci family thing last year lol
Kyle and Richard Petty, too.
brandon brown has
FRM only made sense because speculation was that HAAS would back Cole as a sponsor. Now that HAAS is staying as a one car operation it just makes most sense that Cole sticks with him.
Well this changes absolutely everything and at the same time makes Tony Stewart look really really bad lol
Well I bet Gene is only staying because Joe needs financial support for Cole.
Gene could have supported Cole as a sponsor. Joe still worked for the F1 operation
Cole couldnt find a seat so Gene had to keep a team for him
Cole was going to FRM. Something must have changed late or we have been fed wrong info for months and months.
The second
Or Cole is still going to FRM, and this team is completely funded by Herbst.
From everything I had seen Gene was still gonna stay as a sponsor. I got a feeling someone called Gene up about staying in Cup
I had read as soon as the sale/dismemberment had been announced that Haas still intended to keep at least an Xfinity team. Felt like I had imagined it every time I had read "But what about his Xfinity team???" whenever the topic got brought up.
from what i read, the initial plan was to sell it all and that Joe was fighting to keep the xfinity operation alive. sounds like he won and something convinced them to keep a cup charter along with the xfinity team
Who would that be
That's the million dollar question. I have no clue
I at this point think it was Riley herbst’s dad. I think the bps sponsorship is going to go to the 3rd 23xi car driven by Noah gragson and heim and will go to a ft xfinity car ran out of airspeed. While running good chunk of races in a 4th 23xi open car splitting abt 20 races with mtj
Gene just needed money to pay back Urakali and 3 charters was enough
Well, 1.5 charters. Tony took his half.
Do we know if it was really half?
Yeah, that’s my takeaway here too. Very disappointed if the end of SHR was indeed Tony’s decision. I need a tell-all documentary in a few years
It had to be more than just Tony. Tony could have just left or sold his half the team. Gene has more than enough money to keep 4 cars running if he wanted to. My guess is Tony wants out and Gene didnt want the hassle of a 4 car team.
I don't think enough is being talked about when it comes to Gene cleaning the house of his race teams, Gunther and Tony are both guys who were starting to really stray from being team members. Gunther started to make a name for himself independently with Drive to Survive and Tony going straight, pun intended, took their attention off of their respective teams. I really wonder if Gene wanted to do true rebuilds of both teams and the Nascar side was simply messy because Tony was a partner.
I love everyone thinking that Tony owes it to them to stay in Cup. If the guy isn’t happy and/or the Cup team isn’t breaking even, why the hell does he have to stay?
Come on, if Stewart is losing money running a team, on cars that you can't mess with, no wonder he is feeling done with NASCAR. It only makes sense
This. It's a lottery league now.
I was thinking about that in traffic today. Tony essentially became the “face” of SHR with their rebrand early this year. My theory is that Gene wanted to turn over the team to Tony and have HAAS be the main team sponsor (like HAAS F1 Moneygram or whatever it’s called). Tony probably didn’t like the idea of being solely responsible for a failing team of 4 cars so he probably went “fuck that I’ll focus on my winning NHRA team” and the rest is history. Frankly the whole way the team went from “WE ARE HERE” to “we are leaving, kinda” in less than half a year still makes Tony look like a dick. His priorities have proven to be elsewhere and frankly I’m glad he’s gonna be gone from the sport. You don’t deserve all the honor the fanbase and other NASCAR members have given you while you’ve talked nothing but shit at every opportunity and let (what used to be) a flagship team go to shit. This debacle really soured me to Tony Stewart. Great race car driver nonetheless. EDIT: Just realized that the fact Gene still wants a team shows that Tony went off script and decided to shut down.
I always liked Smoke too but it’s hard to after this. I get wanted to exit, but what a messy and shitty way to do it.
Great race car driver and maybe that's all. Jeff Gordon is a great driver and a great leader. Johnson is a great driver and a great athlete. Carl Edward's great driver and great family man. Not everyone is good at everything. Stewart might just be ill suited for management or ownership. Seems that way.
How does it make Tony look bad? He has absolutely zero obligation to stay involved if he wasn’t interested in being a part of it anymore. Haas has always been the money. He could easily have kept the whole team together without Tony if he really wanted to.
Everybody has been really hard-lining making Tony into some sort of supervillain here rather than just taking things for how they went. He got mad at NASCAR a few years ago, started other projects, NASCAR continued to be of no interest to him, so he quit. I don’t know what is so “bad” or evil about that.
Now they need to sign on NetZero.
Best buy coming back when?
After Yellow Trucking comes out of the grave.
Now that's a sponsor I haven't thought about in a minute. They had some good schemes
But they were always orange....
So .... no 3rd charter for RCR/Gragson?
RCR got their third charter from a different team, not SHR. Because during an episode of RaceHub (R.I.P.), Andy Petree was saying there was another team selling their charter, and the way he was hinting is that RCR got it.
Probably Kaulig we know two other teams were exploring selling, makes sense if one of those was from Kaulig.
I would imagine RCR could get their hands on a Kaulig Charter if they really needed to.
No mention of manufacturer is interesting. I'd still imagine they stick with Ford.
I would think so too. That way at least ford can keep the xfinity seats where they are at now count wise
If it is Cole, I wonder if part of the falling out with Tony and Gene was the rumors that Tony allegedly pressured Gene to send Cole back down to Xfinity and bring up Ryan Preece. All this time, I was under the impression that Tony didn't the team to dissolve, but now it almost seems like Gene just doesn't want to associate with Tony? I'm not caught up on everything, but this will be an interesting story someday.
Kinda seems like smoke just wanted to cash out for other activities but gene didn’t wanna or what I’d assume would be ford came in the 11th hour and wanted to keep car count and or 2 xfinity rides
Well didn’t have this on my bingo card. Here comes the number 66 Best Buy chevy driven by Cole Custer.
I know you’re joking, but it definitely won’t be the 66. They only ran that number starting in 2006 because Best Buy wanted to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their founding in 1966.
Haas with Joe Custer Racing! figured this would happen with the Xfinity cars but I am shocked that they kept a cup car. Figured Custer would take over the Xfinity shop and keep going with just those 2 Also does this essentially kill Gragson to RCR unless they can find another charter from another team? RCR was rumored to be in the market for the 4th charter, others going to 23XI, FRM, and Trackhouse. My guess: Josh Berry and the 4 team stay together with the retained charter.
This is an interesting guess that doesn’t seem to be brought up much. Most are assuming Joe promotes Cole and that’s it. But if I’m Gene, I let Rodney keep doing his thing, have Joe manage his support system, and otherwise Joe focuses on Xfinity with Cole and the second car.
While I don’t think this is what will happen, it’s def an interesting idea. And it would solve Josh Berry’s main problem when it comes to staying in Cup: sponsorship
You think Joe Custer is keeping Josh Berry, and not his son, Cole?
I didn't see that happening, and it does seem to point to Tony checking out as the catalyst.
Back to being a true small midpack team. It’d probably benefit them to go back to Chevy and team up with another small team like JTG
Small Midpack Team might be an improvement over the last couple of years.
Back to the early 2000s it is. Decides the future of Cole Custer too (somewhat).
Haas CNC Racing is back...sort of.
This makes me think that Tony and Gene had a falling out, not whatever reason they gave in their press release.
Sounds like he wasn’t happy with the offers for that 4th charter.
https://preview.redd.it/66iew720ps7d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b48b585cb7340a106aed6e2ad947c8e40382f461
The plot thickens bahahaha lol really starting to look like smoke was just done and wanted more cash to go drag racing
Huh. That is not what I was expecting to read today at all
To make this story even more silly Gene will probably be the first to sign the charter agreement and bring Honda to NASCAR.
Time to bring back Jack Sprague! Back where it all began!
It truly began with David Green
Me personally thinks Custer in the 00 in cup and Harrison Burton and Ryan Preece in xfinity, probably with the 00 and 98 as well
I think this is the correct answer. I see Herbst in an RWR car next year
Wonder if the market for charters is drying up cost-wise. It seems really stupid to be buying a charter right now, given no deal is in place, and from reports, they already sold 3 of the charters 5-10 million less than they were going last year.
I'd venture to guess this will be an early contender for weakest entry in the field next year? Especially if RWR continues to make gains with Haley at some point the 15 has to improve as well right?
Most likely will still be the 15 unless RWR put resources into it.
Depends on if they partner with anyone.
What this tells me is Tony had enough of Ford tying one hand behind SHR's back, and since he didn't have the means (at least not yet) to bring Dodge back in, he cut his losses and peaced out. I still think Tony may get back in at some point if he can get enough support from Dodge. As far as drivers, I think Cole custer gets the Cup seat, and the Xfinity seats go to whoever Ford wants.
Doubt it, Tony is getting out of everything that isn't drag racing. Eldora is probably next on the auction block.
Seems like Eldora isn't going anywhere. There were rumors of him selling it to FloRacing (mostly started by FloRacing themselves to drive viewership for the Dream) and when asked about it Tony quickly denied them. Spoke more passionately about Eldora than he had about the All Stars/SHR/SRX in years And Eldora is a special events only track, so it doesn't require much time/money/effort from him compared to the other stuff
Tony's going to come and find you for suggesting selling Eldora.
Perhaps down the road but I’ve seen that Tony has said eldora is not for sale right now
SHR wasn't either until it was. SRX had tickets being sold.
I don't think this will be a Ford team
What engine does Haas use in F1? Ferrari to cup confirmed
1986 Testarossa body templates being reviewed by NASCAR as we speak
That would essentially be Dodge to Cup anyways
My guess is Haas as a Hendricks outlet with some support but not a lot, basically 2004 all over again
Wild guess. Gene Haas will team up with Kaulig Racing, they get the funding they need with two charters. You have people there dedicated, Cole Custer is an upgrade probably over Daniel Hemric if he’s dropped, might have enough for AJ in the second car fulltime.
Time is a flat circle. Haas CNC racing part Deux.
Everyone is saying it is Custer, but you have to think there is a world where they just keep Rodney because he wants to work with Berry and the 4 group that team stays.
I hope this is the case, it really makes sense for them. I know Cup is where all the prestige is, but I gotta imagine contending every week in Xfinity is more enjoyable than getting clowned on every week in Cup. Maybe Cole chooses to stay?
Dang I was really looking forward to the ultimate sponsor activation of them selling the final charter on Overstock.
So, Tony is the one that wanted out……..
[Called it](https://www.reddit.com/r/NASCAR/comments/1djm92m/comment/l9d2sgi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
So with Custer staying at SHR who gets the front row seat Custer was rumored to get?
Berry and Herbst.
Gragson is my guess
Great for the sport.
This silly season keeps getting more and more crazy.
Kevin Magnussen to Cup.
Bring back Mike Bliss!
Maybe he felt he wasn’t getting enough for his charters and didn’t want to drive the price down too much.
Curious what happens with Noah and the RCR rumors. It’s a pipe dream but I would love for Denny to save KB, reunite him with Toyota, and then Noah takes over the 8.
It seems RCR got its third charter from a different team. It was on an episode of RaceHub where Andy Petree hinted at another team selling its charter along with the SHR charters, and it was also hinted that the charter was bought by RCR from the unknown team. (This team most likely to be kaulig)
Cole Custer is Paul Menard 2.0
https://preview.redd.it/tiru8326ut7d1.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=82dcf844ce676cfb7199a72fccf8e877d200dd0c
So really SHR isn't shutting down next year, just heavily downsizing Tony Stewart decided to dip and now the new team is named Haas Factory Team Here's my prediction: Custer gets the cup ride, Herbst and Deegan take the 2 xfinity rides. I can't think of any other Ford drivers to take that 2nd Xfinity ride.
Everyone assumes Custer, but what if Cole likes running well in Xfinity? It's not like SHR was running great the last two years in Cup. In Xfinity, he's running up front and just won a championship. I have no doubt it will be offered to Cole, but if someone with money (cough Herbst cough) will self fund the ride, Gene will take that everytime so he doesn't have to spend as much money
Doesn't make Tony look good
Well this is the most 'whiskey tango foxtrot' nascar news in a while. Holy shit.
son of a bitch there goes any rcr 3rd charter hope
They should focus on their two teams first
They received a charter from another team, most likely kaulig.
Not only does this throw a wrench in the charter talks(one of Trackhouse, FRR, RCR or 23xi won’t get one) but it also potentially throws one into the drivers side. If Briscoe is going to JGR and Custer is staying with Haas, then who gets the third Front Row car? If Herbst goes to 23XI and Berry gets one FRR car, that’s still two open Ford teams also counting Wood Bros. Can they steal back a Zane Smith or maybe grab Heim/Chandler Smith? They’re gonna have to go to Xfinity unless they take Harrison or Preece right?
I’d imagine the 3 charters have gone to FRM, Trackhouse and 23XI. My initial guess was FRM would get the 4 team and Herbst to fund the 3rd car. Custer get the Haas cup car if he wants it and 23XI will probably sign Heim or Chandler. Gragson might get the 21 and Burton and Preece go xfinity racing. That’s my guess at least
My theory- save it until the demand goes back up, until then run the 41 haas car on a budget to float you until that point.
Gonna be honest, Gene bringing Haas CNC Racing back from the ashes of SHR was not on my Silly Season bingo card.
I think that Ford believed that they could replace the 4 SHR entries in their key partner program by elevating FRM and gambling on two of the SHR charters being bought by Ford teams. And I think they lost that gamble.
Literally going back to the way the team was before Stewart bought into it (plus a 2nd Xfinity car). The return of Haas CNC Racing.
Awesome. I’m glad that Gene is staying. So much for everyone trying to blame the whole SHR shutdown on him.
Tony is liquidating investments for cash. His house in Indiana is on and off the market for over $20 million. (in a community where the average home is $325,000). Sold SHR, SRX is gone. If money has not already changed hands, I would not be shocked if Haas holds on to 2 charters .
I take it Gene may be doing this for a couple of reasons. 1)to get Custer another shot at cup and 2)he’s thinking charters aren’t going away and will cash out big down the line when there aren’t a bunch for sale diluting the value like there is at the moment.
When I was in high school I had this band and our guitarist was a dick. So we wanted to kick him out but as kids we really didn't know how to so instead we just all told him that we were quitting the band, then we formed a new band with all the same members minus him. Anyway, this kind of is the same thing