This year, NASCAR’s Silly Season started on a surprising note with Michael McDowell moving teams. But things took a somber turn when Tony Stewart rolled out an announcement. After 15 years of top-notch racing, Stewart-Haas Racing is shutting down after the end of this season. This has brought a wave of nostalgia accompanied by a jittery outlook for its drivers’ future. And perhaps it’s Ryan Preece’s future that’s most at risk.

This situation at SHR is such that a couple of their drivers have performance-based advantages over others, while the outlook is rather bleak for the others. Unfortunately, one of Dale Earnhardt Jr’s employees believes Preece might soon be bidding adieu to his Cup Series career. 

After collecting one Truck and two Xfinity wins, Ryan Preece landed a full-time Cup ride in Tony Stewart’s fold in 2023. His debut season was not entirely miserable, as he secured two top-ten finishes and one pole win. But 2024 hasn’t been his year so far. With a single top-1- finish, Preece stands 29th in the standings. Considering this, the hosts of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, a show under Dale Earnhardt Jr’s media franchise, discussed Preece’s situation on Tuesday, casting a dark cloud over his future.

They landed on the 33-year-old as a passing afterthought while talking about the SHR drivers. Freddie Kraft said, “Preece is probably out. I would assume he is going to find a home in the Xfinity Series somewhere.” Brett Griffin nodded in agreement: “Yeah, that’s what I hear too.” This scenario seems likely given Ryan Preece’s present luck in Cup races and his better performance in NASCAR’s lower tiers.

In 2022, he secured two top-six finishes, a win at Nashville Superspeedway in Xfinity, and six top-four finishes in Craftsman Truck. Truck Series teams like Rackley WAR have roped in veterans Matt DiBenedetto and Ty Dillon. Thus, Ryan Preece’s veteran status may spell a good prospect in Truck or Xfinity. However, as for the remainder of his Cup Series career, which could potentially end this year, the #41 driver expressed his resilience through his words.

When Tony Stewart signed Ryan Preece in 2022, the latter came in with the goal to win at the Cup level. He told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, “When I came to SHR for the opportunity, that was to build something and to try and win at the Cup Series level. There’s been small moments where I feel like we had the ability to do it. So, certainly, I think for the next few races, my goal is unfinished. I’m a fighter… hopefully we can get the saddle on the horse.”

Soon after Stewart and Gene Haas gave them the news, their drivers began to ring up their NASCAR contacts. Currently, Chase Briscoe is getting the most traction as a prospective driver. Owning an average finish of 16.5, Briscoe may be called to fill vacancies in teams like Joe Gibbs Racing. Noah Gragson may also land a respectable position, considering his performance. But besides Preece’s weak prospects, Josh Berry seems to be in a similar position.

Even though Berry’s season has started looking up, there have been questions about his future. However, he’s got his team backing him. In an appearance on another Dirty Mo Media creation, Berry’s crew chief Rodney Childers stated, “I said at the beginning of the year, Josh Berry is not going to fail on my watch and I still mean that. It’s important to me that he races next year, and he’s not a one-year wonder, and he’s extremely good, and he deserves to be in the Cup Series. That’s our priority the rest of the year.”

Josh Berry and the #4 seem to have found the synergy they’d been looking for all this time, and now that they have, Childers believes the team can lead Berry to a victory in the coming races. But will that be possible if SHR as a whole starts crumbling? Because it’s starting to feel like the walls are caving in for them.

The work is getting more hectic in Tony Stewart’s camp

A sign of a crumbling team is dwindling attendance. With Stewart-Haas Racing exiting at the end of 2024, numerous employees are already quitting to secure their future. As a result, Tony Stewart’s drivers already have a lot on their plate besides focusing on race performance. With 5 top-10s and 1 top-5 this year, Chase Briscoe has a lot to look forward to. But at the same time, work is getting harder.

“It might really be hard for us just to even get cars to the race track,” Briscoe said during qualifying Saturday at the World Wide Technology Raceway. He stressed the existing constraints, “Once people leave, there’s nobody coming back. We already do it on way less people than the other four-car teams, so it is kind of scary just knowing the position that we’re in right now.”

As Tony Stewart’s stellar team draws its curtains, the NASCAR Cup garage hopes his drivers will find homes soon.