A Fan's Look at the Stewart-Haas Race Shop in Kannapolis, North Carolina

On our annual trip to North Carolina, we decided to make the short drive to Stewart-Haas Racing in Kannapolis. Formerly known as CNC-Haas Racing, the team changed significantly when Tony Stewart came on board as a driver and co-owner. In addition to Stewart, Ryan Newman another Indiana boy joined the team. Prior to our trip, we attempted to find information on whether or not the shop was open to the public, but that information wasn't listed anywhere. Luckily enough, it was open.

As soon as we pulled into the ample parking lot, we were blown away by the sheer size of the building. The main building, which is open to the public was larger than almost any other shop we passed on our trip with the exception of Race World. The Stewart-Haas logo has a vintage feel to it, which seems to fit well with the team.

We entered the building and found ourselves blown away yet again. On one wall they have giant pictures of Stewart and Newman as younger boys, with pictures of their new cars underneath. Two enormous walls of the race shop were covered with large glass windows that gave fans an inside look at the goings on of a race shop.

They also give fans a view of the actual race shop floor, where people were working constantly. On display were several different vehicles that the teams were working on. It was easy to spend quite a bit of time just watching them work. They also had a special edition car driven by Ryan Newman on display, which promoted Stewart's Prelude to the Dream event at Eldora Speedway.

Stewart-Haas Racing also has a large display area in front of the race shop where two of the cars are sitting. When we were there, they were running a promotional event and giving away a new Chevy Camaro, which was also on display.

To the right is a large gift shop that sells merchandise from Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman and Stewart-Haas Racing. Inside the gift shop was another display, which showed Tony winning the 2009 All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, including his trophy. We were fairly surprised given that it had only been a few days since his big win.

The one disappointing thing was that they didn't have hero cards for their drivers out on display like other shops. It was only after I bought something that they offered me a Stewart card and they didn't have Newman ones anywhere in the shop. Despite that, Stewart-Haas Racing and their race shop is very impressive and I recommend all NASCAR fans check it out.