Winning and losing, moments of jubilance and moments of despair, are all part of competing in a sport, especially one that is as competitive as NASCAR. However, over the last year or so, the balance between the good moments and bad moments has tilted toward mostly the latter for Stewart-Haas Racing, the team co-owned by Tony Stewart. Recently, two SHR drivers were handed fresh penalties from NASCAR who stripped them of 35 points.
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The penalties came as a result of NASCAR finding Ryan Preece and Noah Gragson’s racecars not having the appropriate roof air deflectors. The parts from the racecars of the SHR drivers were confiscated by NASCAR before Ryan Preece ended up with a 16th-placed finish while Noah Gragson finished had a DNF to his name.
Because of this penalty, Preece is back to square one in terms of the point standings as he currently has 0 points and almost 50 away from the playoff cutoff. This matter is even worse in Gragson’s case as his current point tally stands at -6.
One can’t help but wonder how disappointed Tony Stewart must be with these penalties, considering the dismal season SHR had last year both in terms of competition as well as various penalties over the last two seasons.
Tony Stewart was quite mad at NASCAR for penalties against his team in 2022
In October 2022, NASCAR issued a couple of penalties against Stewart Haas Racing which amounted to roughly $300,000 in fines. When Tony Stewart was asked about these at that time, while he was preparing for an NHRA event, he didn’t hold back on his feelings.
“I’m so mad at NASCAR right now. I’m not talking about it . . . If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve got a couple of appearances that I have to make, I wouldn’t be in another NASCAR race the rest of the year,” Stewart said.
“Wouldn’t waste my time.”
Of course, since then Stewart has appeared for many NASCAR races because penalties, fines, ups, and downs, are all part of the sport, of any sport in general. But the number of times, particularly in the last few years, Stewart-Haas Racing has found itself on the wrong side of the two sides of sports is a peculiar thing, to say the least.
