A year after SHR's stunning announcement, its drivers have found new homes, success in Cup
CONCORD, N.C. — Chase Briscoe grew up a Tony Stewart fan, his bedroom decorated with Stewart memorabilia. So when Stewart-Haas Racing selected Briscoe ahead of the 2021 season to drive the No. 14 car Stewart had, it was a special day.
'I thought that was the car I was going to potentially retire in,' Briscoe told NBC Sports.
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That changed on May 28, 2024. Stewart-Haas Racing, a four-car Cup operation that won series titles with Stewart in 2011 and Kevin Harvick in 2014, announced it would shut down after the 2024 season. Among the team's 323 employees looking for work were its four Cup drivers — Briscoe, Josh Berry, Ryan Preece and Noah Gragson.
'At the time I was bummed,' Briscoe said. 'Just the whole team shutting down. I felt like that was really my family.'
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A year later, three of those four former SHR drivers are in a playoff spot heading into Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
'It's just crazy how quickly things can change,' Berry said.
Berry won at Las Vegas in March for the Wood Brothers to all but assure himself his first Cup playoff spot. Briscoe is 12th in points with Joe Gibbs Racing near the midpoint of the regular season. Preece, 15th in points, also holds a playoff spot for RFK Racing. Only Gragson is outside a playoff spot at this time of the season with Front Row Motorsports.
Tonight, Briscoe will lead the field to the green flag for the Coca-Cola 600 after winning the pole. It's his second pole of the season after claiming the top spot for the Daytona 500 in February.
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'I think last year a lot of people looked at us as underperforming and now we're overperforming,' Berry said. 'It changes just like that. The perception has changed completely.'
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Berry has been strong on the 1.5-mile tracks, the same length as Charlotte Motor Speedway. Along with his Las Vegas win, he finished sixth at Kansas in the most recent Cup race. He was leading at Texas when he crashed earlier this month.
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Briscoe's has finished a season-best fourth four times, including twice on 1.5-mile tracks, doing so at Homestead and Kansas.
Three of Preece's four top-10 finishes this season have come at a 1.5-mile track.
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The focus will be on Kyle Larson seeking redemption at the 1.5-mile oval.
For Preece, going through the unsettled situation last year at Stewart-Haas Racing, in a way, wasn't new for him.
'Really, my situation has been a one-year contract since '22,' he said. 'In all reality, it's been one year on and on and on. That hasn't changed me a whole lot. … It's very satisfying to be with this group (at RFK Racing). We all kind of came together very last minute. Derrick (Finley, the crew chief) even joked about it, he said, 'We didn't pick the team, the team chose us.''
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While Gragson has had his struggles this season, he'll start eighth in tonight's race. He's had only one better starting position this season.
'I think we've all fallen into really good positions with great teams and I'm thankful for that,' Berry said. 'Thankfully, we all did enough last year to find those opportunities and come out on the other side of it.'
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