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Is Stewart-Haas Shutting Down a Bad Sign For NASCAR? · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Yeah, we got some stuff going on here.
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  I needed to get off my bind or I needed to get out to you guys.
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  And it has to do with Stewart, Stewart Hoss Racing basically
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  announcing they're leaving the sport.
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  I posted last night, I did a post on X last night.
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  I talked about the charter system and the and what, you
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  know, it might what it might be. The value you might have for
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  these guys are they're selling teams, right?
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  When the charter system was put in, there were a couple reasons
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  #1 this goes back originally, it goes back to the 90s when we had
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  so many cars trying to get in these events and guys would miss
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  races. And the problem was we had guys
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  that had big, big, big time sponsors that missed races, OK,
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  because they couldn't qualify. Good.
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  So they come up with their provisional spots and all that.
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  That kind of took care of a little bit of it for a while.
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  And then, you know, the guys that put their blood, sweat and
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  tears into the sport for years as an owner, you know, 30 or 40
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  years and when they get out of the sport, you know, they've got
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  nothing. It's a fire sale.
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  So all everything they put in it that we had no value.
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  So those are the two reasons they started this charter deal.
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  And you know, after I put the post out last night, I see some
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  people talking about BJ McLeod selling and what he got.
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  But, you know, I'm not really sure what we heard all kinds of
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  numbers what that charter sold for.
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  But this deal with Stuart Haas, I think is going to really show
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  you know what, what the value is of these charters.
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  You know, if they got 4 charters to sell, I'm sure they've
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  already probably worked out three or three.
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  I got an ID that's already happened in the background.
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  I don't know. But anyhow, it's going to be
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  interesting to see all that. I think Kenny on Kenny Wallace
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  shoe or on one of his deals. I think he he dove into this
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  deeper. But the thing I want to touch on
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  right now, if you guys is, are the comments that are that are
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  being made about as a state of our sport because of Stuart
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  Hall's racing leaving All right. You know, fans talk about it in
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  the demise and it's it's always the same group, it seems like.
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  But, you know, we've got some some negative journalists in our
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  sport that that that'll take a story and make it negative.
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  OK, And those are probably the ones that those guys and the and
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  the you know, and the negative fans, these are the ones that
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  stories for. OK, I want to point out
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  something, you know, you're talking about Stuart Hoss
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  pulling out and the the how that impacts our sport and our sport
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  must be on the demise. It's got to be going downhill
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  for a team like that to pull out, you know, and just be gone.
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  No, that's not the case. Let's look back a little bit.
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  If you go back in history, golly, who was that first big
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  Karl Keefer or Keehefer, whatever his name was, he back
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  in the late 50s, he had those Chrysler 3 hundreds.
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  If some of you old guys might remember, if you don't look it
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  up, he had, he came in their sport from up north, wherever he
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  was from and very professional deal.
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  He fielded three or four or five cars at times.
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  If you, if you look back at old pictures, you'll see he came
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  their sport like gangbusters band and very professional of
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  the way he presented himself and the way he did his teams.
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  He had four, like I say, four or five cars, I think four or five
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  teams. And he came to their sport for a
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  while and he left, right? He just got tired of it or
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  whatever and he left and the sport survived.
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  And then you know, our main Star Wars over the years, you had
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  Junior Johnson and Associates, right?
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  One time he was the Rick Hendrick of our sport.
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  He up and left Petty Enterprises.
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  One time the Hendrix of our sport, they up and left, OK,
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  you've had, you know, Bud Moore engineering, right, one of the
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  Star Wars of our sport for years and years and years.
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  You know, they, they up and left.
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  And if you look at all of them, most of them, the owners, you
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  know, the owners got older, OK, And when they got older, they
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  realized, you know, they just couldn't put into the sport.
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  What are into that team, what needed to be put into it from an
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  owner's perspective to make the thing survive, right?
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  Furniture Row, they won a championship, right?
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  And they got out. Now the rumors are because of
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  money. It just, it just cost them flat
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  too much to keep going, even though it's a championship team,
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  right? But the deal.
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  Stuart Halls And, you know, they're leaving.
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  Yeah, they're leaving. But there's four charters there,
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  OK, Those four charters, somebody's going to pick them
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  up. Those four charters mean four
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  race cars. That means four teams, that
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  means employees. And I mean hell, it might maybe
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  somebody come in and buy the whole thing.
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  I don't know right or to be spread out.
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  But but by them leaving in in my mind, it's better than it was
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  years ago when junior left and Bud Moore left because they left
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  with A1 car team or two car team at the most, right.
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  And those those those employees were left without jobs.
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  So they had to go find a job with another team that already
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  had employees. So it it put a hurting on
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  people. But this deal here with them
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  leaving, you know, it's still they're leaving the sport, but
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  there's still 4 charters there. So these guys I feel like are
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  going to have jobs and places to be.
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  It's obvious if, if you don't understand what it takes to be
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  an owner in our sport, which I fully don't because I was never
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  an owner in a cup, although I did buy the Bush deal.
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  The amount of time, the amount of effort, the amount of
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  willpower, the amount of everything you've got that it
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  takes to be a successful owner in West a cup race or I'm sorry,
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  Cup racing. Now it's it's just, it's off the
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  charts. You take Gene Haas, he's got his
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  F1 thing going on. He I think he had a few little
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  health issues he had to work on contend with, you know, Tony's,
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  Tony's Dolph doing his drag racing and his race tracks and
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  his dirt stuff and all. I remember one time asking Tony
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  years ago, I said, Tony, what would make you happy?
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  What would make you happy? Tony?
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  And he told me verbatim, Rick, if I could run, if I could just
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  race my dirt car, you know, five or six nights a week, I'd be the
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  happiest man in on in, in on the earth, Right.
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  And so, you know, that's kind of Tony's mindset now.
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  He's got the the drag drag racing thing going on, but big
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  with Tony, you know, he married the Pritchard lady, Leah, and,
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  you know, and she kind of backed off because they want to start a
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  family and have children. Well, you know, he's off doing
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  all his stuff. He doesn't have so much time.
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  You know, Gene Halsh is off doing his his stuff.
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  He doesn't have so much time as an owner in Cup.
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  You have got to be involved. You have got to be there.
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  You've got to be there all the time.
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  So in my mind, I look at it like these guys probably felt like
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  they were not given the team justice.
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  They they weren't giving their drivers, they weren't giving
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  their crew guys the, the do or the justice that those guys
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  should have and deserve, right. I, I, I think I haven't heard it
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  put that way, but I think that might play into it more than I
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  just want out of the sport, OK. I don't want to be the sport
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  anymore. I think probably they're looking
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  at all these guys careers, all these drivers are the crew
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  chiefs. You know, you look at Childers,
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  you look at, you know, all these guys that's involved in that
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  deal and they, Tony and Gene, I'm sure I know Tony.
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  I don't know Gene that well at all.
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  But I do know Tony pretty well. And I know that he wants his
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  people to always do well and to be successful.
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  And you know, Tony would always give what he needed to give to
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  see that happen. And he realizes he's not.
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  If he's not there or Gene's not there, then the thing just
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  isn't, you know, it just isn't what it needs to be.
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  I think Harvard alluded to that a little bit, but or Harvard,
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  Kevin. So, you know, in my mind, that's
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  probably, you know, the reasons for them leaving.
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  But but my point being, I want everybody to understand teams
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  come and go in our sport. It's happened, all right.
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  The the greatest teams in our sport have been here and they've
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  left for various reasons. Whatever.
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  It has nothing to do with the state of our sport, right?
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  No matter what fans might want to make of it.
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  And that's fine. They're all fans of their
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  opinions. But the thing that gets me is
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  some of our negative journalists, and I'm talking
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  about journalists that are good journalists, but they'll turn
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  every story into a negative no matter what.
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  What The thing is, you know, and I just, I do not see this as a
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  negative for our sport. I it just, you know, it doesn't
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  resonate that me that way with me because I've seen so many of
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  them over the years. They're gone and their sport
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  keeps flourishing and keeps going.
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  Somebody to me, this is the best deal that ever happened with the
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  team leaving because they're leaving.
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  But the four charters are still there.
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  Guys, you're still, you still got four race teams that are
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  going to be there next year running under each one of those
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  charters. So to me, it's a very, very,
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  very positive thing. I hate the stirhouse is gone.
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  I mean, yeah, it's upsetting and unsettling for all the
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  employees, the drivers trying to figure out what they got to do
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  and what they're going to do. And for those guys, I feel for
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  you, honestly, I do. I've been in that spot, man.
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  And it's not fun. It's not fun at all.
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  But there is light at the end, a tunnel of this thing for those
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  people. But for the overall sport, you
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  know, I think it, I think it's a great thing because again, when
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  teams left before, when junior left, all of a sudden there's
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  teams without, you know, there's employees know where to go,
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  drivers know where to go. You know, there's no place to
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  pick it up. Well, now we deal with the
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  charters. So somehow or another we're
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  going to get this on the Rick Mash show.
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  If I if I ever found my producer again, we're going to do this.
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  I don't know where or how or what, but anyhow to be on there.
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  So anyhow, I just I had to get that off my chest guys.
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  So anyhow, have a good day. Peace out.
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  Bye.