The Stewart Haas Racing (SHR) team has been on a rollercoaster ride of late. At first, they announced that they would be folding, and selling off their charters, and they even asked all the drivers to find a new home. The news had everyone in shock, and before that initial shock even subsided, Gene Haas announced another shocker.

He decided to keep a single charter and continue racing in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series without Tony Stewart! For the unversed, Gene has his own team, the Haas Factory Team. But without a star driver like Stewart in the mix and the team rebranded, this seems to have traveled back to the time when Gene Haas first formed the team. The team’s inconsistent and confused messages have left many, including Kevin Harvick, baffled. Speaking on that in his podcast, Harvick just gave them a harsh reality check!

Kevin Harvick criticizes Gene Haas’s leadership

Kevin Harvick is someone who has known the SHR inside-out. After all, he has been with the team for 10 years and knows the inner workings while also winning the NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2014. Commenting on the recent developments, he said on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast, “I have no idea what is happening here now. Now I’m confused. Is there a spat? Did something happen between Gene and Tony? Was Tony just fed up with not being able to do the things he needed to do from the competition side?”

Harvick speculated Tony might not have been able to make the moves he wanted, to get better results, whether it was hiring Kyle Larson or Busch, for that matter. According to him, Tony Stewart must have been like, “Screw it; I’m out of here. I’m not going to race this way with whatever is happening.” 

Referring to the chaos, Kevin Harvick said, “I mean, we’ve already gone through a whole process where they told everybody they were leaving the sport, and now we’re like, “Hey, just kidding, here we come, we’re back, we’re going to run a full-time Cup team, and we’re going to rename the team.” But Harvick has little to no expectations of the team performing well.

According to him, they brought in Stewart, so that the team could leverage his power on the field and get hold of good key players to build a championship-building team. But now, with their golden boy out of the picture, the question remains: Are they going to be able to sustain this long-term? One major issue is, who will drive their car in the upcoming season. To make matters worse, the biggest question is whether the good people who came in for Tony Stewart will stay behind for this newer team. Let’s hear from Harvick.

Harvick thinks the Haas team is incomplete without the Stewart-Charm

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SHR might not have had a few good years, but they were a great team with drivers like Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, Ryan Newman, and Kevin Harvick. And Harvick feels like without that marquee name, it’s going to be difficult for the new rebranded team to keep the good people. But having said that, he has one tip and a driver suggestion for the team.

The driver Harvick wants in that seat is Cole Custer. According to the 48-year-old, he has been through all the drama and behind-the-scenes action and has also performed well time and again amidst that, so he has earned that seat. Custer won the 2023 Xfinity championship in his return season to the series. He has 13 career wins at the Xfinity level. Currently, he is No. 1 in the Xfinity standings with 589 pts. He also has a tip for Gene Haas.

Harvick said, “You gotta have the people, and the only way to keep the people to is pay em.” According to Harvick, Haas must pay Cole Custer because he has the most experience in the team, so he can definitely be the pillar or force to take the team forward and get it into the competitiveness it will need. In his words, he said, “If it’s going to be a one-car team, it better be Cole Custer driving it.”

Those are bold statements coming from Kevin Harvick, but the man knows the sport and, in this case, even the team in question. And we all know how disappointed and shocked he was when the news of SHR folding first came out. Do you think Gene Haas will pay for the boatload of money needed to retain the good people on the team? Let us know!