The end of Stewart-Haas Racing at the end of the NASCAR season will lead to the loss of 323 jobs. Some of those employees may find jobs with a smaller team moving forward in 2025 with just half of the current ownership duo.
NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Tony Stewart and Gene Haas formed the Kannapolis-based team before the start of the 2009 season, and together collected 69 wins, the last coming in November 2022. In May, the pair announced this season will be the last for the four-car Cup team, which also has two cars racing in the second-tier NASCAR Xfinity Series.
In June, Haas announced he would form a new team, Haas Racing Factory, that would race a single car in the NASCAR Cup series, plus a two-car team in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
Some of the current Stewart-Haas Racing team members may remain with the new team, Haas Factory Team, which will have approximately 90 to 100 employees, according to paperwork filed with the state. Haas has owned or co-owned a Cup Series team since 2002. He founded Haas Automation in 1983 in Oxnard, California. The machine tool manufacturer now operates out of a 1.1 million-square-foot facility in southern California.
Those losing their jobs with Stewart-Haas Racing include those responsible for everything from changing the front tires of race cars to making sure the radiator keeps the engine cool. There are also fabricators, engineers, a strength and conditioning coach and truck drivers who transport the cars across the country from track to track. Those employees have had informational meetings with the owners to discuss the closure, severance and benefits, and there will be further meetings to assist employees losing their jobs, according to the company.
“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,” Stewart and Haas announced in May.
The NASCAR season ends Nov. 10 with the Cup Series Championship at Phoenix Raceway, and layoffs will begin the next day for the Kannapolis-based team, according to a filing with the Department of Commerce.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s four-car Cup team fields the Nos. 4, 10, 14 and 41 Fords for drivers Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece, respectively. Two Xfinity Series teams also carry the SHR banner (Cole Custer, Riley Herbst).
Drivers for the team over the years, which includes Stewart as a driver-owner, include some of the biggest stars such as Ryan Newman, Danica Patrick, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch.
Stewart, 53, is an Indiana native who won the NASCAR Cup season three times as a driver, while winning 40 Cup races between 1999 and 2016. He stopped competing full-time in the Cup Series in 2016 and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2020.