Apparently, it’s Tony Stewart’s half of Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) that’s exiting NASCAR’s Cup and Xfinity Series at the close of this season. Gene Haas is sticking around and will keep one of his NASCAR Cup Series charters, as well as operating a two-car NASCAR Xfinity Series team out of the existing Stewart-Haas facility in Kannapolis, NC.
The Haas Automation founder decided to close his existing team but wanted to maintain a NASCAR presence, albeit on a smaller scale than what SHR had done in recent years. Currently SHR fields four NASCAR Cup Series cars and two in NASCAR’s Xfinity Series, all powered by Ford. Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece are on the Cup Series side; Cole Custer and Riley Herbst drive for SHR in Xfinity.
The new, solely Gene Haas-owned entity will be called Haas Factory Team. “My commitment to motorsports hasn’t changed, just the scope of my involvement,” Haas explained. “Operating a four-car Cup Series team has become too arduous but, at the same time, I still need a platform to promote Haas Automation and grow HaasTooling.com.
“Maintaining my presence in Cup allows Haas Automation to compete at NASCAR’s highest level, which is important to our customers and distributors. The Xfinity Series program provides a full weekend experience furor guests, and it delivers added depth and scale to our overall operation,” he said.
While Haas Factory Team hasn’t divulged either drivers or team partners with this announcement, the team did state that Joe Custer is the newly-named president of the team and that they’ll continue to use the existing facility in North Carolina. The newly formed team expects to make further announcements in the lead-up to the 2025 NASCAR season.
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