Cameroon timber
The four-car Ford team went winless last season and saw two of its veteran drivers – Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola – retire from full-time competition in the offseason.
SHR added two inexperienced drivers to its lineup in Noah Gragson and Josh Berry, while Chase Briscoe and Ryan Preece returned in the Nos. 14 and 41 teams, respectively.
With a pair of unpredictable drafting tracks in Daytona and Atlanta opening the 2024 schedule, Sunday’s race at Las Vegas and the following week at Phoenix should offer a good gauge what teams have this season.
The 36-race schedule is dominated by intermediate tracks like Las Vegas and tracks utilizing the short-track/road course aero package which will debut at Phoenix.
“Yeah, definitely Vegas is our first true test of where we stack up,” said Gragson, a Las Vegas native who drives SHR’s No. 10 Ford. “A majority of the schedule is mile-and-a-halves, short tracks, you’ve got Vegas and Phoenix, those two especially.
“But Vegas will be our first test as to where we’re at as a company, speed-wise.”
Noah Gragson, Stewart Haas Racing, Black Rifle Coffee / Ranger Boats Ford Mustang
Photo by: Rusty Jarrett / NKP / Motorsport Images
Since Tony Stewart joined as a co-owner in 2009, SHR has won a pair of Cup Series titles (2011 and 2014) and collected 69 wins.
The organization has struggled the last couple years, with only Harvick advancing to the playoffs last year while his three teammates all finished outside the top 20 in the series standings.
With an influx of new drivers and Ford’s introduction of its “Dark Horse” Mustang body, the next two weeks could well signal whether SHR is back on the right track.
“Vegas is going to be where you finally figure out, not only as a manufacturer but certainly as a race team, where you’re going to stack up for the next couple of months and where you’ve got to get better,” said Briscoe.
“I would say Vegas is certainly the race track where 90 percent of the garage has circled as the one they’re most looking forward to in order to see if what they did in the offseason will come to fruition.”
Chase Briscoe, Stewart-Haas Racing, HighPoint.com Ford Mustang
Photo by: Danny Hansen / NKP / Motorsport Images
For SHR, that work began almost as soon as the 2023 season came to an end.
“Literally, all the way back in November I was already running the sim stuff for what we have for Vegas,” Briscoe said. “We’ve put a lot of emphasis on Vegas – Vegas and Phoenix, truthfully – just trying to hit the ground running.
“From the simulator and even from what it says on paper, or when we look at the computer screen when we look at the sim stuff, this Ford Mustang Dark Horse body should be dramatically better than what we had last year.”
As teams have learned repeatedly, simulation work doesn’t always translate to the track.
Early season setback
However, there have been signs in the season’s first two races that the Ford body will make a difference this season.
Two Ford drivers – Joey Logano and Todd Gilliland – have led the most laps so far this season, although both have gotten involved in on-track incidents and sit far down in the standings. Fords have also won the first two poles.
As for SHR, Gragson and Briscoe both had top-10 finishes at Daytona. All four teams have shown speed in the races, but all four drivers have been caught up in at least one accident so far.
Both Gragson and Preece were also penalized 35 points when NASCAR discovered their respective cars had unapproved roof deflectors at Atlanta.
A strong showing on the West Coast would do well to help SHR determine whether its road ahead will be a rough one.
“About 99 percent of what we do at Vegas will come down to how the manufacturer did behind the scenes during the offseason, coming up with the new body and how the teams did applying the new offsets and deltas,” Briscoe said.
“I’m just excited for what we have, what we think we have. You never know until you get there, so it’s going to be entertaining, for sure.”
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