UPDATE: It’s an open secret within the garage that Stewart-Haas Racing co-owners Tony Stewart and Gene Haas are contemplating selling the four charters they own. SHR is also having talks about selling or leasing all or part of its headquarters in Kannapolis, N.C., where it currently has two buildings.
Front Row Motorsports has emerged as the leading candidate to purchase one of SHR’s charters, multiple sources within the teams told The Athletic. While not mentioning SHR specifically, FRM general manager Jerry Freeze said the Bob Jenkins-owned outfit is exploring the idea of adding a team.
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According to team sources, the likelihood is that SHR divests itself of all four charters. And the market is filled with prospective buyers. In addition to FRM, the teams known to be charter shopping (to varying degrees) are Trackhouse Racing, 23XI Racing, Legacy Motor Club and Richard Childress Racing.
— The Athletic —
ORIGINAL POST 5-21-2024: [Noah] Gragson was the only SHR driver to make the all-star main event, something for the organization to at least feel good about. With Stewart-Haas Racing’s plans for 2025 in limbo and drivers and crew members indicating the real possibility of the team selling all four of its Cup charters, even the drivers admit to having no idea what’s happening.
Stewart-Haas Racing Chief Operating Officer Joe Custer politely declined comment Sunday afternoon on the SHR team plans for 2025. Custer, father of SHR’s Xfinity Series driver Cole Custer and who has worked with team co-owner Gene Haas for decades, is the team executive who has primarily been at the track this year.
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This situation is not a surprise. SHR has been a team in transition all year. It lost major sponsors Smithfield (which left the sport) and Busch Light (which went to Trackhouse Racing and Ross Chastain after the retirement of Kevin Harvick). Its deal with Ford Motor Company for support also ends after this season and there has been no announcement of any renewal — typically those announcements are made by this time.
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According to team employees, SHR executives have indicated they hope to let them know in the next couple of weeks of their plans. It is possible that the team keeps its two-car Xfinity program (where Custer and Riley Herbst currently drive) as well as its business of supplying Xfinity cars to other teams (such as Sieg Racing).
— Fox Sports —
AND: NASCAR charter prices have been on an upward trend the last several years, but that march could be halted – at least temporarily – if Stewart-Haas Racing unloads several of them over the coming months as expected, according to industry executives familiar with the matter. The assets, which are NASCAR’s version of franchising for teams, have risen from being worth just a couple million dollars in the opening years of the system to the most recent sale — a purchase last year by Spire Motorsports from Live Fast Motorsports — being for a number that approached $40M last year.
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With the possibility SHR could sell as many as all four of its charters, supply has shot up in the charter market at the same time that teams have yet to strike a new revenue sharing agreement with NASCAR
Those factors are depressing prices at least temporarily, sources said. SHR could sell each charter for between $20-30M apiece, industry sources familiar with charter market dynamics said in recent weeks. Still, the same people said that fresh record highs for charters can still be established in the coming years as an improved revenue sharing agreement between the team and NASCAR Holdings gets locked in during the coming months and as the remaining charters that are available for purchase become more scarce.