At a GM dinner the week of the brickyard race in Indy. You have to remember what Kurt has done at Furniture Row has been interesting to many people. Haas was not the only person to talk with Kurt that night; however they did apparently talk at length. Kurt running the Indy 500 apparently also may have come up in that conversation. Don’t be shocked if Haas Automation ends up also sponsoring that attempt with Andretti Autosport. Haas has also talked with Kurt a number of times in the garage this season so there was nothing really extraordinary about the conversation. Anyway during that conversation Haas was able to find out Kurt’s contract status. Nothing more was really done at that point it was just an idea. No Tony was not at that dinner; I believe he was racing a sprint car at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach Illinois that night which would have been the 25th of July.

Now fast forward to 5 August Tony has his crash at Oscaloosa, Iowa; which was his 32nd sprint car start for the season. At this point it becomes apparent that Tony will be out of racing for a while. Haas is fairly upset because only a matter of days before Tony was asked by a sponsor to curtail some of his sprint car racing and concentrate on making the Chase. Tony ignored both the sponsor and Haas. Haas runs the business side of the show; all Tony wants to do is race. That works out well, as long as Tony realizes that his extra racing has consequences. The fall out from this is you can bet money that future sponsor arrangements will include contract clauses that curtail or eliminate his extracurricular racing. Haas is the one who has to deal with all the business issues that tony stirred up after this debacle.

Anywho, at this point with Tony out and not speaking to Haas; yes not speaking. Haas had chewed his ass and Tony simply stopped taking calls because everyone was basically telling him I told you so. At this point Haas decides to drive the point home and do what he wanted to do; just like Tony had been doing. So Haas offers Kurt a job knowing neither Tony nor future driver Harvick care for Kurt at all. He also sticks it to Tony in another way because Newman and Tony are real good friends and the fact that Haas will fund a car for Kurt but not Ryan puts another wedge between the two. Basically Tony has tied his own hands all he had to do was cut back some of his other racing. He wanted to run 60 sprint races this year and a bunch of folks were telling him that is too much risk. Haas provides most of the financial support for the team in that he owns all the assets including the building the cars are housed in so Tony has no real recourse. He is really only a figurehead who does not understand the business side as well as he should. I think Haas said it best in one of his own quotes after the deal was signed. “My main goal here is to win races. I think Tony’s main goal is not only to win races but to run a successful business. I’m more interested in seeing the winning part of it. Maybe Tony is going to be more the businessman now.”

The last sentence of the quote above is very telling. The first part of the quote is basically a flip of what Tony had been doing now applied to Haas. So this is how a business guy with a bunch of money teaches a lesson to a guy like Tony who thinks he knows what he is doing but really doesn’t. In business you can’t always do what you want if you do then you just have to deal with the consequences.

My personal opinion is the Stewart Haas Racing will not survive this episode intact, as we know it today. I think there is some serious animosity between owners right now and it will only be resolved in some sort of a split. The move to hire Kurt I believe is the beginning of that split. The problem for Tony is if the team splits he has basically nothing to bring to the table as an owner because Haas owns all the assets. Tony on the other hand is just as he wants to be, just a driver. Hopefully Tony will come to his senses and relies he doesn’t have the money or skills to be an owner on his own. He was partnered with Haas because he could drive, but he is an owner only on paper; hopefully he gets the message and fixes things. If not I give the team to the 2015 season before it implodes.