KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — Tony Stewart apparently isn’t going to be shown the door at Stewart-Haas Racing as he understands that the man with whom he shares the team name is the one with the bigger checkbook.
Last week, Gene Haas said Stewart wasn’t happy that he had offered a contract to driver Kurt Busch without the two team co-owners going over all the details of adding a fourth Sprint Cup team.
Tony Stewart says he and team co-owner Gene Haas are not at odds over the hiring of Kurt Busch. (AP Photo) Stewart, in his first news conference since breaking his right leg in a sprint-car racing accident Aug. 5, played down any potential beef between the two partners over Busch, whose hiring was announced last week.
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“This was something that he came up with and it happened all at once, and Gene made the decision that he wanted to make a change,” Stewart said Tuesday. “We're partners in this, and Gene wanted to make a change, and I've got to go with that.
“It was his choice to add Kurt to the organization, not me. I really truly was 100 percent behind it; I was just concerned about the timeframe. The rest of it about everybody's perception that we're fighting and arguing, there was never one argument between us.”
Haas gave Stewart half of what was then Haas CNC Racing in 2008 in exchange for Stewart driving for the team and handling the day-to-day operations.
Stewart’s ability behind the wheel — he won his third Cup championship in 2011 — and to attract sponsors and key personnel was key to Haas’ decision to form the partnership.
But until last month, it was Stewart and his people who had made the critical decisions over the last five years. Haas, though, decided he wanted Kurt Busch so badly that he told Stewart he would sponsor the car himself with his Haas Automation company. With Stewart mainly unreachable for a week after his injury, Haas didn’t initially inform him of his negotiations with Busch.
“I don't think Tony was exactly enthralled with what I did,” Haas said. “But I think he saw it my way, you know? Either that or get out of the building.”
Stewart concurred with Haas’ assessment, although he did say that Haas didn’t realize how big a deal his actions caused when the focus turned toward Haas and whether he respected Stewart as a co-owner.
“He's definitely the guy that writes the checks, and if he decides he wants to do something, I'm pretty sure with the fact that he holds the checkbook that he gets kind of the final say of it,” Stewart said.
“But I think he values our opinions now and understands why I was asking questions and (being) cautious about the time frame of it.”
Stewart said he is happy that Busch is part of SHR.
“Kurt is a huge asset,” Stewart said. “He's a guy that you know can go to every racetrack and has the capability of going out and being fast and being able to possibly win the race every week at every discipline.”
A month before SHR hired Busch, Stewart said the team would not retain Ryan Newman because it was not ready to expand to four teams and already had hired Kevin Harvick to go along with Stewart and Danica Patrick.
Haas said last week that he got the idea of hiring Busch two weeks later when they started talking at a Chevy dinner.
“When we had the press conference at Loudon (about Harvick replacing Newman), where we were at then, it was exactly what we said,” Stewart said.
“It was 100 percent on the mark. … Gene is not used to having partners. Gene is a self-made success story in the CNC industry, and he's pretty much been a one-man show doing it, and this is the first time that he's really had a partner. I think going through that process, he just didn't think about talking to me about it until it got further along.”
Stewart has had a few run-ins with Busch, including reportedly punching him in the NASCAR hauler five years ago. Harvick and Busch have both been suspended by NASCAR during their careers and Stewart is known to have a quick temper as well.
“It's kind of been inevitable at some point that all three of us during different stages are going to start growing up,” Stewart said. “I don't know that all three of us have completed that process yet, but I think to a certain degree and certain level, all three of us have made huge gains in that area.”
Stewart scoffed at the idea that he has a volatile driver lineup for 2014, but conceded that:
“We’re definitely going to have to hire a lot more people for the team,” Stewart said. “There's going to be two really key positions that we're going to have to fill.
“And that's, one, a therapist for me, and the second one is the therapist for the rest of the team. But it's going to be fun.”
