Noah Gragson’s career seemed to come to a screeching halt this past August. The 25-year-old from Las Vegas, Nevada, had been suspended by Legacy Motor Club and NASCAR after allegedly liking an insensitive post on social media. Add his dismal results to that point in the year, and it seemed his career might have crashed and burned before it left the runway.
Fast forward to December of 2023, and Gragson is once again in the spotlight, but this time, for a good reason: he’s been signed to arguably a top-5 team in the NASCAR Cup Series, taking over the No. 10 Mustang Dark Horse for a retired Aric Almirola. While Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) has lost some of its luster over the past few years, turning in relatively subpar results and only garnering two wins over the past three seasons, its history can’t be denied. Two championships and a slew of wins from legends such as Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick make those like myself believe that there is a chance for Stewart-Haas Racing to recapture the glory days of 2018, where all four cars made the playoffs and won at least one race.
Fresh faces in Gragson and his former JRM teammate Josh Berry provide a sense of promise in the office, while incumbent drivers Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece revise their 2023 roles. Briscoe arguably has the most upside of the four, but Berry has proven to be a championship-caliber star in the Xfinity Series, as has Gragson. Preece seems to be a bit more of a work-in-progress, but he showed flashes of potential last season, dominating the spring race at Martinsville before a pit road penalty doomed his day.
Stewart Haas Racing’s rebuild isn’t guaranteed to be quick or even guaranteed to work at all, as Berry and Gragson are largely unproven in the NASCAR Cup Series. But if the rebuild does pan out, and SHR once more becomes a powerhouse, or even the top Ford team in the NASCAR Cup Series, Stewart and Gene Haas will be sitting in their offices laughing at everyone who called their organization dead at the start of the 2020s. If it doesn’t pan out and the team flops? Everyone who called the team dead will seem to be proven right until another rebuild begins.
