Did You Notice? … Stewart-Haas Racing announced an executive shakeup Tuesday (Aug. 2)?
Team Co-President Brett Frood, who has been with SHR since 2009, is leaving the company to become the commissioner of National League Lacrosse (NLL). There’s no bad blood between SHR and Frood, whose lifelong passion is lacrosse; he played at Brown University and was a former team captain.
Frood will remain in an advisory role once his tenure with the new job starts Sept. 1. But the in-season departure is just the latest distraction in one of the toughest years this organization has had in NASCAR.
Despite a victory by Chase Briscoe at Phoenix Raceway, it’s conceivable the entire four-car team will end the regular season outside the playoffs. Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola and Cole Custer sit winless; combined, they’ve led just 20 laps this year.
I’ll let you stop and read that sentence again. Here’s a shortlist of individual drivers who have led 20 NASCAR Cup Series laps this season: Michael McDowell (38), Harrison Burton (20), Justin Haley (20) and Corey LaJoie (20). Those are the depths to which SHR has fallen after winning nine races, the regular season points title and leading over 1,500 laps with Harvick alone just two years ago.
Briscoe, of course, is the lone SHR driver who’s shown front-running speed this season. He won Phoenix and nearly added a second victory in the Bristol Dirt Race this April before tangling with Tyler Reddick during the final lap.
Since then, though, the No. 14 team has struggled, posting just one top-10 finish over the last three months while slipping to 16th in points. Briscoe sits just 30 points ahead of an ailing Kurt Busch as the lowest driver on the totem pole with at least one Cup victory; should Busch return this weekend, the possibility exists Briscoe could fall behind him.
To be fair, NASCAR would need three new winners in the last four races for the Briscoe scenario to play out; all of them would need to be above him in points. But the fact this possibility even exists shows how mightily SHR has struggled to get a handle on the sport’s new Next Gen chassis.
Briscoe, at least, appears the most solid brick in what’s become an increasingly shaky foundation. Let’s lay out the scenarios at the other SHR teams, one by one.
Kevin Harvick: A certain Hall of Famer, the 2014 Cup champion has carried this team since Tony Stewart‘s decline during the mid-2010s. He’s done a Herculean job this season working…
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