Money and superstar status alone don’t ensure profitability and success for a team on the racetrack. This is something Tony Stewart experienced with his NASCAR team, Stewart Haas Racing. SHR represents one of the biggest names in NASCAR. But they struggled to maintain their success in the Next Gen era, falling to blue chips like Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. The lack of track success coincided with a loss of interest among sponsors. SHR lost a pair of big-time endorsers when Smithfield bowed out of NASCAR entirely and Anheuser-Busch pinned its hopes on Trackhouse Racing, instead. The organization was also set to lose Ford at the end of the season.

NASCAR racing isn’t exactly going through the best phase, with teams fighting tooth and nail to secure sponsorship. As far as the charter system is concerned, it has yet to prove its reliability in helping the owners run their race teams with proper backing and financial aid. This was one of the major reasons why Tony Stewart left NASCAR, as he wasn’t sold on the new charter agreement. He even aimed digs at NASCAR, stating that “The charter agreements are a joke,” but it seems like he ran into similar troubles with his NHRA Top Fuel team.

New racing series, same old trouble for owner Tony Stewart

Just like NASCAR, NHRA is dominated by powerhouse racing organizations. Dough Kalitta, the 6-time runner-up and 2023 Top Fuel champion, has the backing of his airline company, Kalitta Charters. Meanwhile, Steve Torrence and his son Billy have the backing of their company, CAPCO Contractors. This is something similar to what we see at the NASCAR level, with Rick Hendrick supporting his team with HendrickCars.com and Roger Penske doing the same with Penske Entertainment.

So it has not been easy going for Smoke and his team, TSR Nitro, to compete against the top dogs. Aligning the similarities between the two racing series, Stewart, speaking at Race Industry Week, opined, “Not everybody is a Conard Kalitta and has an air service. You know the Torrance family has Capco. They do great business in Texas. But for me, I’m a professional race car driver that retired from NASCAR, right? I don’t have that income coming in. So anything I’m spending out of my pocket is literally coming out of retirement that I have to live with the rest of my life.”

To put things into context, the 3-time Cup Series Champion (and one more as an owner) made a lot of money from his time in NASCAR. His earnings of over $130 million make it a big number, but there are several considerations to be made. Stewart’s SHR team put on a string of poor performances. The lack of business for the team forced it to shut down. Although there is money yet to come with the sale of two of the team’s charters, the deal is on hold until the NASCAR lawsuit clears. To race in the NHRA series, a team, on average, needs at least $3-4 million every single year.

Stewart also opened up about not being able to break even after the end of the 2024 season. Now that is a let-off given that he had already decided to depart from his role as an owner at NASCAR. “It has to make sense financially to run these cars and we struggled for the first two seasons as a team owner. We never did even come close to breaking even for this season, but at the end of this season our books look a lot better, and I think we’re finally going to be in a situation where hopefully we can at least break even for the season financially.”

Well, Tony Stewart knew the nuances of operating a race team at the NHRA level, and he isn’t complaining about it like he did with NASCAR. Owning an NHRA team gives Stewart unique insight into the differences and similarities of owning a NASCAR team and one that competes in the NHRA.

“Well, it’s a lot smaller operation, obviously, as far as personnel that it takes to do it all. That’s probably one of the biggest things that you notice right out of the gate, from an ownership side. I think total, we have around 25, 26 people at TSR that are just on the Nitro teams. You know, versus at one time, I think we were up to 385 or something at SHR. So the amount of people it takes is drastically different.” Stewart said in October about the NHRA team

He thought that it can be done for a reasonable budget. But simultaneously he had also pointed out, “I feel like the hard part is just generating the sponsorship to do it.” While there are differences between the NHRA and NASCAR when it comes to the number of people and the costs, there are similarities, according to Stewart.

“It’s attention to detail, and it’s people, it’s hiring the right people to do the right jobs. And that becomes even more critical when you have a small company. And when I say small company, I mean, each of these teams has eight to nine people on them. So when you have a group that’s that small, it’s very, very important. It’s this way in all aspects of it whether it’s the NASCAR program, sprint car program, an NHRA program, having the right people in the right positions is absolutely one of the biggest keys,” Stewart pointed out.

Rather, he’s hopeful that the new TV deal and the influx of new partners in NHRA drag racing will put his team in a better position financially.

NHRA is eyeing a better TV deal that aids the race teams financially

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The NHRA Racing Series is on the tail end of its TV deal with FOX. Although FOX has ensured and delivered great exposure for the teams, it isn’t exactly a big revenue-generating stream. And seeing NASCAR take a different route partnering with multiple media partners, this is something that might be on their radar as well.

For the unversed, last year, the sanctioning body announced a new seven-year TV deal that will have FOX Sports, NBC Sports, Amazon’s Prime Video and TNT Sports each getting a share of NASCAR Cup Series broadcasts from 2025 through the 2031 season.

Fans will also find NASCAR race content on Peacock, USA, TruTV, and the B/R (Bleacher Report) Sports Add-On on Max. And don’t forget that all Xfinity Series content will be on the CW Network. The reported $7.7 billion package that kicks in for the 2025 NASCAR season is a 40% annual increase over its previous deal. The new deal was struck in an era of high inflation and corporate cutbacks, and many predicted NASCAR would be lucky to match its current deal. And NHRA must be observing these developments keenly.

“We talk internally here about getting a TV deal that is going to be lucrative enough that we can funnel some of those dollars back into the race teams and racetracks. That creates health,” NHRA president Glen Cromwell told Autoweek. Ron Capps, a three-time NHRA Funny Car champion and team owner of Ron Capps Motorsports thinks NASCAR’s deal will bring good news for NHRA as well.

“I think NASCAR’s deal is great. I know I had an ear-to-ear smile. I think it’s just a matter of time. It opens the door for a lot of different things for us,” Capps said. Stewart is also optimistic about better financial prospects with the new TV deal.

“I chose this, and it’s my job to go out there and raise the funds and generate the sponsorship to keep the teams going. So we’re working at it, and it’s coming, and we’re seeing new partners not just with our team, but you see it across the board with NHRA,” Stewart added. Well, on the racing side of things, Tony Stewart fans would also like to see him win races in 2025. And now that he’s announced his return to full-time racing, he certainly is destined to make history and add more silverware to his collection.