Never saw this one coming

A real shocker last week in NASCAR news. Stewart-Haas Racing has announced that they will switch from Chevy to Ford for the 2017 Sprint Cup season. That will bring drivers Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Danica Patrick and Clint Boyer into the Ford fold. Tony Stewart will retire as a driver at the end of this season but will continue his part ownership of the team. He also stated that they will build their own chassis and bodies and will get their Ford engines from Roush/Yates. SHR currently uses Hendrick engines and chassis. This will require a substantial increase in personnel for both SHR and Roush/Yates. The four car team will require approximately 60 engines per season.

I thought Stewart was only about GM hency why he left Gibbs when they switched to Toyotas as soon as he could.

My take is that since Stewart is retiring after this year and he won't be driving anyway he probably doesn't care what brand they run as long as they get the support they need to be competitive. My guess is that Hendrick was probably getting tired of getting beat by Stewart-Haas and would not be giving them the same level of support in the future. This also gives SHR a chance to prove they can do it on their own without help from Uncle Rick. Time to move on.

I wonder how much influence Stenhouse had on this deal. He has been a buddy of Tony's for years and is dating one of Tony's drivers (Danica).

It will be interesting to see how well they do once they are out from under the Hendrick shadow. I doubt they will be as strong the first year or two until they learn how to build their own cars but there should be a lot stuff they learned from Hendrick that they can apply.

Mystery is why Roush/Fenway hasn't been competitive for so long. After all, team Penske uses RF engines. Chassis? Can't say RF's Sprint Cup driver lineup is stellar either.

I see some hope for Roush with the new low downforce package. They have not been competitive ever since the cars became so aero dependent. Now that the cars are going in the opposite direction Roush may do OK again. Stenhouse had a decent car last week. Jack has proven that he won't pay to keep the better drivers.



The Penske cars haven't done much in the first two races either but I suspect they will bounce back once they figure it out.

Wonder if Clint Bowyer's Autoplex starts selling new Ford's next year? :rofl:

Go Team Penske! One - two (Keselowski and Lagano) at Las Vegas and satellite Wood Brothers team (rookie Ryan Blaney) finishes sixth.



I guess they got it figured out for at least one race.

The Penske cars haven't done much in the first two races either but I suspect they will bounce back once they figure it out.

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Good call! :supercool:



Surprised the odds weren't higher for both.

Looks like the odds for last week's race are no longer shown but they are taking bets on the season championship already.



Danica at 500:1 :rofl:



Oh wait, she'll be driving a Ford next year...:sad: