Tony Stewart's official assures commitment to 23XI, rules out seeking new charter buyers amid NASCAR legal battle, per insider

Joe Custer, president of Stewart-Haas Racing, is not expecting any change in terms of their charter sales for the 2025 NASCAR season. The team is looking forward to running just one team next year and has assured its commitment to 23XI Racing, as reported by Bob Pockrass on X.

The NASCAR community has been in chaos since the announcement of SHR's closure at the end of the 2024 season. The Gene Haas and Tony Stewart-owned racing team, which currently owns four charters, has planned to downsize to just one for next season and run under the 'Haas Factory Team' banner. Meanwhile, the other three teams were sold to Front Row Motorsports, 23XI Racing, and Trackhouse Racing.

However, amid the legal battle between NASCAR, FRM, and 23XI, rumors began circulating on whether the deal between SHR and the two Cup Series teams would still be going ahead. To clear the air, Custer spoke with senior NASCAR journalist Bob Pockrass ahead of the Xfinity race in Las Vegas.

"Checked in with SHR's Joe Custer on pit road prior to Xfinity race. He told me their understanding as far as their charter sales is no change to the process or the expectation. He isn't planning on having more than 1 charter nor having to sell the charters to someone else," Pockrass wrote on X.

Here's a look at the post:

NASCAR is yet to approve the sale of the aforementioned charters between SHR, Front Row, and 23XI Racing. Further adding to the uncertainty is the fact that the sanctioning body has revealed its plans to move ahead with just 32 charters instead of the current 36 for the 2025 Cup Series season.

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Amid the Cup Series Playoff, 23XI Racing's co-owner Denny Hamlin shared an update regarding the Stewart-Haas Racing charter sale

Denny Hamlin, driver for Joe Gibbs Racing's #11 team and co-owner of 23XI racing has entered the 2024 Playoff Round of 8, along with 23XI's #45 racer Tyler Reddick. Despite being locked in the elimination-style battle, Hamlin shared an update regarding Stewart-Haas Racing's charter sale.

Ahead of the South Point 400 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Hamlin spoke about the purchase of SHR's charter with senior journalist Bob Pockrass. The later shared shared the news on X.

Here's a look at the post, captioned:

"Denny Hamlin said he has not had discussions with NASCAR about the approval of an SHR charter transfer to 23XI (23XI has an agreement to buy one) after this season and doesn't know of any deadline for a decision on it."

As for the 2024 season, Hamlin is placed sixth in the driver's table. While the JGR driver is in the elimination bubble for the Round of 8, Reddick (driver for Hamlin's #45 team) is comfortably above the cutoff mark.