Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

The Flo interview with Stenhoise says Pruitt was released by Shark racing on Sept 30th. Does anyone know why that happened or who took over as crew chief for Logan? 

Seems like a big part of the story wasn't shared until after the fact. Sounds like a Ripper quit because he heard Pruitt had been hired to replace him, but not from his boss.

1. Sheldon let ricky know him and ripper were leaving after the season. 2.  Ricky and Pruitt agree that Pruitt will be the cc next year.  3.  Shark fires Pruitt.  4. Sheldon wins Grove.  5.  Ripper gets informed he won't be finishing the season with the 17 as originally planned. 6. Crew quits. 7.  Bayston next year's driver in the 17.  

*Dirtvision interview

Silly season this year is off of the charts!!! 

Do you have any documentation to prove that 7. is true?

Lol  noone has sent me the copy of the contract, no.

Probably was not the best timing on an optics side but I can't really say the decision is a bad one. Reading what he said, it makes sense that if a qualtiy crew chief is available and your crew chief that is working on the car has already informed you that he is leaving, then I agree with Ricky when he says how can you fire someone that has already quit? The whole 17 situation seems like there may have been some drama inside the team that has not been mentioned. In the interveiw, Stenhouse had mentioned "I felt like, for us to give Sheldon the best shot to win a championship, we were looking at making a change at the crew chief position. I know Sheldon are boys, and they've been tight from day one, and have had great success. But we've had a lot of inconsistencies," said Stenhouse, who added that "Richard and I, at that point, we didn't want to blow everything up."

That sounds like to me that Stenhouse and Marshall want more performance wise and were looking to make a crew chief change in 2026 anyway but perhaps Sheldon wants Ripper to be his crew chief so decided to go with him. Not sure if any results will be different in the 18 KCP car if that is in fact where he goes. 

Spencer Bayston must bring a lot of money to keep getting these rides (if him to 17 is true). 

For sure.  His results are "meh" at best.  Nothing against him personally.  

True that, and it ain't over either!

So, Ripper the Rapper can go to the 1a for 10 races. Problem solved.

If these are listed in chronological order, Pruitt took a new job before telling 1A which is pretty unprofessional. In hockey this is called tampering and you could watch the sport from home for a season if found guilty. I doubt there is anyway to police cherry picking contracted his heads, so rude dirty and unprofessional but not, "bad".

I work in tech, and this is the normal way business is done in my world. Engineers find a new gig, accept the offer, then give notice to their current job. I don't hold it against them. People got bills to pay… If they're not happy, they need to look around or something that's better for them. Why would you cut the rope before you have somewhere else to land?  Business is business... even if it's racing.

Yes, this happens quite often. However in professional major league sports there are legally binding contract. Most of the drivers and crew are not on a contract. And in those arenas of professional sports you're dealing multi million dollar contracts in billion dollar arenas. 

Keep It Real