FANTASY NASCAR Racin

GENE HAAS - 11/12/1952 -
is founder, president, and sole stockholder of Haas Automation, one of the world's leading CNC machine tool manufacturers. He also founded a NASCAR team, Haas CNC Racing now known as Stewart-Haas Racing. In 2002, Gene Haas formed a new NASCAR race team, Haas CNC Racing. After purchasing the Concord, North Carolina-based Craftsman Truck Race facility from Hendrick Motorsports, Haas CNC Racing began work on its first entry in the Cup series as a single-car team. The first entry for the new team was September 30, 2002 with driver Jack Sprague who finished 35th after a crash. Sprague drove 18 races in 2003 and after a 14th place in the season opening Daytona 500 he would only post one other top 20 finish in the next 17 races. Sprague was let go and John Andretti took over for three races; he had a best finish of 19th before Jason Leffler would wheel the ride for the next 10 events. Leffler could only manage a single top 25 finish. Burton's best finish would be at Atlanta finishing on the lead lap in 13th. Burton drove the entire 2004 season posting three top 10 finishes in the underfunded team. Burton left the team at the end of 2004 saying he would "only drive for a quality team and only in the Cup series"; and in fact turned down a couple competitive rides in the Xfinity and Truck series. Due to that Burton virtually ended his career. "Out of sight; out of mind" seems to be the way it is in NASCAR, so when he refused to take a ride in any series, people simply hired those willing to drive the lower series with hopes of moving back to the CUP series. Mike Bliss wheeled the car in 2005 and he

posted a best finish of seventh at Bristol. He posted two Top 10's. Jeff Green was hired to drive the car in 2006-2007. During those two years, he posted five Top 10 finishes with a best finish of sixth. 2007 saw Johnny Sauter drive the car and post the teams best ever career finish when he came in fifth at Richmond. Scott Riggs would drive the car in the teams final season but only posted one Top 10 result. The team made 284 Cup starts and had one Top 5 finish. Haas also fielded teams in the Xfinity Series from 2003-2006. They raced full time the 2004-2006 seasons. Jason Leffler ran in 2004; and posted

the teams lone win. Leffler would visit victory lane at Nashville after starting second and leading 61 laps. Justin Labonte would wheel the Chevy in 2005; but was only able to post two Top 10 finishes. In 2006 Haas had Johnny Sauter drive and he posted two Top 5's with a best finish of fourth. He also posted nine Top 10's and finished eighth in the points. As mentioned above in 2007 Sauter moved to the Cup Series. In 2014 Haas hired Cole Custer to drive nine races in the NASCAR Truck series. He posted one win; two Top 5's and six Top 10's. Also in January 2014, Haas confirmed that he had formally submitted to the FIA his interest in entering a team in the F1 championship in 2015 or 2016, initially named Haas Formula and Haas Racing Developments. On April 11, 2014, Haas announced that he had been granted a license from the FIA. In September

2014, the team took up its current name of Haas F1 Team to better promote its involvement in the chosen sport. In December 2014, it was further reported that Haas purchased major assets from the bankrupted Marussia F1 team. The team is headquartered in Kannapolis, North Carolina – 31 mi from Charlotte – alongside sister team and NASCAR entrant Stewart-Haas Racing, though the two teams are separate entities. The team also established a second forward base in Banbury in Oxfordshire for the purpose of turning cars around between races during

the European part of the calendar. Unrestricted by testing regulations until the time the team actually entered Formula One, Haas shook its new car down in December 2015 ahead of official pre-season testing at Barcelona in early 2016. Haas approached Italian manufacturer Dallara to build their chassis, with a power unit supplied by Ferrari. Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutiérrez drove for the team in 2016. In the team's debut at the opening Australian Grand Prix, Grosjean finished 6th, scoring eight points for the team, which became the first American constructor to win points in its first F1 race and the first constructor overall since Toyota Racing in 2002 to record points in its debut. Another impressive race followed in

Bahrain, where Grosjean finished 5th. Although the rest of the season the team fell off the pace, only scoring points on three more occasions. On November 11, 2016, the team announced that Kevin Magnussen would drive alongside Grosjean in 2017, replacing Gutiérrez. In the first race of the season, the team scored its best-ever qualifying effort with Grosjean piloting the VF-17 to 6th place. However, in the race, one of the issues that was hampering the performance of Kevin Magnussen throughout the weekend struck again, forcing both cars to

retire from the race. The team's success would continue in 2017 as Haas would also go on to get their first double points finish in Monaco where Grosjean finished eighth and Magnussen tenth. The team finished 8th place in the constructors' title for the 2nd straight year. In February 2018, Haas unveiled their new car, the VF-18. Haas again showed up in Australia with a competitive car; scoring the team's best-ever starting grid positions with Magnussen starting 5th and Grosjean 6th, respectively. During the Grand Prix, they were running in 4th and 5th positions, but both cars retired one lap after their respective pit stops. They would eventually match this 4th and 5th-place result in Austria, where they also surpassed their 2017 points

total after only nine races. 2018 was their best season to date, finishing fifth in the Constructors' Championship. The team took on Rich Energy as a title sponsor for 2019; a British energy drink company which was previously linked to purchasing Force India. The team also retained their 2018 driver line up for 2019 consisting of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen for the third consecutive year. The new VF-19 racecar often showed impressive pace during qualifying but struggled during the race. At the opening

race in Australia, Magnussen finished 6th in what would eventually turn out to be the team's best result of the season. Title sponsor Rich Energy faced numerous legal issues during the year, including being found to have plagiarized the logo of bicycle manufacturer Whyte Bikes. In September, a day after the Italian Grand Prix, Rich Energy announced the termination of the deal with Haas F1 team. Haas kept an unchanged lineup of Grosjean and Magnussen as their drivers for the 2020 season. On the opening lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Grosjean collided with AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat and crashed through the barriers between turns 3 and 4. The impact resulted in the car splitting in two, and bursting into flames. Grosjean escaped major injury, suffering burns on his hands and was hospitalized after the race. He remarked that the halo head protection device likely saved his life. The crash ruled