Tony Stewart‘s empire in the NASCAR Cup Series wasn’t built overnight, but it only took months for it all to come crashing down. Drivers were left without seats as Stewart-Haas Racing closed its doors forever, selling its charters. One of their stronger drivers recently pinpointed one major reason that brought down Smoke’s empire.

Chase Briscoe knows why SHR closed

“It wasn’t that SHR was not top-tier,” Chase Briscoe said. “Our parts and pieces were the same as JGR and Hendrick. I think we just got off the rails a little bit.”

While Stewart-Haas Racing had only formed relatively recently, the team could be compared to the Big 3. They had commendable infrastructure that helped them to dominate the field. But the Next-Gen car reset the field, and SHR found themselves in trouble.

“In 2022, the first year of Next Gen, nobody knew what to do. We finished third in the 500, led a ton of laps at Fontana, then went to Phoenix and won. That one didn’t feel like we were at this huge deficit when we went to Darlington,” he added.

“Our car didn’t drive quite as good in dirty air. Everything was a little bit worse. But setup-wise, we could hit it good enough to compete for wins — you’d just only get three or four opportunities a year. At JGR, you might have 15 to 20 race-winning opportunities.”

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SHR couldn’t keep up the pace with NASCAR’s Next Gen compared to the top competitors. Over time, he realized how their cars weren’t that strong and couldn’t get the same opportunities as the big teams.

For Stewart-Haas Racing, their performance dropped slowly but surely under the new regulations. Yet, they fielded four Charters in the Cup Series field, finding it hard to compete at the top. When the team officials felt it wasn’t working compared to competitors, SHR closed down at the end of the 2024 season. With that, a hard-earned empire that Stewart had built by winning championships for himself and Kevin Harvick came crashing down.

None of the crew or drivers knew about this, and understandably, they were left without a seat for 2025. Briscoe found himself a seat with Joe Gibbs Racing and marked a strong performance in 2025 with three race wins.

Gene Haas continues to operate the Haas Factory Team with one of the charters. As for Stewart, it was a bit different. His commitments in the NHRA forced his NASCAR reign to end. The team sold off their remaining three charters.

What happened to SHR’s charters?

By the time SHR decided to sell off their charters, the situation had tensed up a little in the Cup Series. 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports filed an antitrust lawsuit against NASCAR regarding the new Charter Agreement.

Interestingly enough, it was these two teams who agreed to buy one charter each from SHR. The district court did allow them to make the purchase; however, the decision was overturned in the middle of the 2025 season, and they raced as unchartered teams.

However, it all came down to one place in December when NASCAR had to settle with 23XI and FRM. Charters were made evergreen, and both teams had their purchases from SHR restored.

Today, there is no Cup Series charter that exists under the Stewart-Haas Racing title.