With everything that was going on throughout the season, Stewart-Haas Racing has astonished the entire NASCAR fraternity with the Darlington performance. Of course, it was Chase Briscoe’s race craft that took the team to victory lane and slid it into the playoffs. But it wasn’t an absolute driver-propelled result, as he did have a really fast car. But circling back to the fact that SHR has been in a backup mode the entire season, with members leaving, it might have taken a lot of courage and strength for Briscoe to execute the Darlington run.

Keeping aside all the odds, the #14 team managed to do the impossible and is now on the last stretch of its last season.

What did SHR have to go through in 2024?

“Because Stewart-Haas is going away, people are starting to leave the team,“ gather Dirty Mo Media podcasters. Everyone tries to bide time when there are no future prospects. Moreover, the motivation to perform is hard to find when everybody is quitting. But that was not the mindset with which Chase Briscoe was comfortable with. He was still in contention for the first half of the season.

The biggest problem with SHR was that they were locked out of information and technical support after

the announcement to shut down. The team didn’t have a choice to put up a show before it retired. During an interview with Matt Weaver, Greg Zipadelli said, “Yeah, Ford is, you know, cutting off our information. I have guys here at the track who come to the tracks, their laptops don’t work.” To the least, it must have been demoralizing for the people who were stuck till the year’s end.

To work without data in today’s motorsport era is as good as simply conceding the competition. So the people who remained tried to do the unimaginable.

“You could tell the people that are still there take a lot of pride in the company. They’ve been beaten down all year. The people that are left there are just trying to go out with some semblance of respectability,” said the NASCAR insider.

And out of all the people who were the talk of the town about having a winning chance in the Southern 500,

Chase Briscoe was the one who actually made it. When asked about his feelings about the breakthrough win, Zipadelli exclaimed, “I don’t have the words to explain it.”

“At the end of the day, there is no company,” says Zipadelli

Tony Stewart‘s SHR has practically been abandoned, and each person is on their own now. Whatever needs to be done and whoever can do it is how the team is making ends meet. “The men and women that work everyday and every night, whatever they need to do. Because at the end of the day, there is no company.”, shares Zipadelli.

While Ford has pulled the plug on SHR, the exceptional team members have decided to go out with a bang and show the entire fraternity what they’re capable of. And that’s what it takes to win championships. So, in all honesty, Chase Briscoe has a very tangible bet at winning this year’s Cup Series title.

The team has shown resilience in adversity, and teamwork without supervision. If the key people keep it together till the very end, who knows? They might again get it done.