Team owner 'DONE' with NASCAR amid 23XI lawsuit 'CHAOS'

NASCAR team owner Tony Stewart has not held back in his criticism of the current state of the series, insisting he is happy to be 'done' with it.

Stewart - who is a three-time Cup Series champion - co-owns Stewart-Haas Racing alongside Gene Haas. However, the team are set to pull the plug on their NASCAR operation at the end of 2024.

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This was confirmed back in May, with a team statement revealing: “We have made the difficult decision to close Stewart-Haas Racing at the conclusion of the 2024 season. It is a decision that did not come easily, nor was it made quickly.

“Racing is a labor-intensive, humbling sport. It requires unwavering commitment and vast resources, with a 365-day mindset to be better than everyone else. It’s part of what makes success so rewarding.

“But the commitment needed to extract maximum performance while providing sustainability is incredibly demanding, and we’ve reached a point in our respective personal and business lives where it’s time to pass the torch."

Now, based on recent comments made by Stewart, he has no regrets about that decision.

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Tony Stewart 'done' with NASCAR

Opening up on the above, Stewart revealed that whilst he had no grand plans to leave the sport at the start of the year, as the season has progressed, it has become clear he wants out.

"This is a time where things are drastically changing in the sport. You look at what's going [on] with 23XI and Front Row Motorsports right now and their battle with NASCAR and the direction that things are going, it's not a direction that I want to be a part of," Stewart said on Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour podcast.

"This is the right time, this was never a part of a master plan but this is, as this year has gone on this has become very clear that this is the right time for me to get out of the sport."

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Delving into those comments further, Stewart explained: "It's just a different time in the sport. The sport's going to be healthy, it's going to survive. It always has, it always will. But I'm happy at this point in my life to make this change,"

"Like I said, it wasn't that way at the beginning of the year, we had different reasons for why we had to shut down at the end of the season.

"As time's gone on and watching the owners and NASCAR fight and just the chaos that's going on over there, I'm fine being done with this at the end of the year."

Stewart-Haas Racing currently have three full-time cars in the Cup Series with the #4, #10, and #14.

These are driven by Josh Berry, Noah Gragson, and Chase Briscoe respectively, although only the latter of those names won a race and made the playoffs in 2024.

Stewart-Haas won't be signing out with championship glory, however, after Briscoe was eliminated from the playoffs after the round of 12 earlier this month.

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