iNSIDE SCOOP: SHR Rumbles Toward Expansion

For those of you who didn’t believe that Kurt Busch would join Stewart-Haas Racing for 2014, there’s been a quasi-announcement of that fact.

Greg Zipadelli, the director of competition at SHR and a racer’s racer, said this about the current mode of expansion at SHR today during a media session with Mark Martin, who is filling in for team co-owner Tony Stewart.

“…We are looking to expand. We are looking to do whatever we can to make Stewart-Haas a better place to race, give our drivers better resources.  Our goal is to give our teams better product to race every week going into Daytona.  With four good drivers next year I think that it gives us that opportunity.  Our owners are aggressive.  It’s kind of exciting it’s fun in a time where everybody is kind of going the other way we’ve got owner that are committed to stepping up and hopefully making Stewart-Haas a bigger and better place in the future.”

Four good drivers. Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Danica Patrick…and Kurt Busch. The rumor that Rodney Childers would come over to be Kurt’s crew chief is picking up steam too. Michael Waltrip Racing announced that Childers would not be back as the crew chief on the No. 55 that Brian Vickers will drive next season, and his rumored destination is...SHR.

 “We love Rodney (Childers),” Zippy said. “We think a lot of him. He has been a friend of mine for a while.  We have talked to many people.  He is on our radar, but we have no commitments, nothing signed.  I talked to people yesterday about the opportunity so we would love to make him part of Stewart-Haas, but we are not there yet.  As far as Kurt’s deal that is moving forward.  We spent some time this week talking about buildings and expanding.  As far as that part of it goes we are pretty much committed.”

There you go. Rodney Childers and Kurt Busch in an even swap for Ryan Newman and Matt Borland, who is reportedly moving with Newman at the end of the season. The where is a question, but the who isn’t, despite the fact that Zipadelli said no crew chiefs have been hired for 2014.

As for Newman, Zipadelli said that the situation drove this, not his performance or his character.

“Gene Haas is obviously a partner [in the team] and started this many years ago,” he said. “He just came the other day, he has always liked Kurt (Busch).  We had talked about Kurt last year of putting him in the No. 39 [but] things just didn’t work out. 

“It’s really nothing that Ryan (Newman) did wrong.  I mean he’s done a great job, he’s a good guy, heck of a driver.  This just kind of got sprung on us 14 days ago or less.  It’s kind of all come down.  Gene just showed some interest and having the ability to put something together.  Without getting into a ton more details that is really all it is.  It’s something we are working on. 

“I don’t know that it will all come together.  It’s going to take an awful lot.  It is kind of late.  We didn’t think that we would have all the pieces to get put together at Loudon and felt like it was the best thing for Ryan to give him a fair shot at securing something for himself.  I mean which is the most important thing.”

With the as-yet-to-be-announced addition of Busch to the driver lineup, with sponsorship reported from Haas CNC, that means that SHR is set to challenge the Hendrick-Gibbs-Roush mega-teams for supremacy.

It should be fun to watch, however it all shakes out.