The Failed NASCAR Superteam Everyone Forgot
The collapse of two promising, historic teams led to a failed superteam. That team was HScott Motorsports. Started in 2013 after Turner Scott Motorsports’ shutdown, co-owner Harry Scott Jr. bought out long-time Cup Series backmarker Phoenix Racing to form the team. Moves like moving the team’s operations from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to Mooresville, North Carolina, and hiring young, promising drivers with sponsorship.
Like Justin Allgaier and Michael Annett, plus getting equipment from the most outstanding NASCAR team in history, Hendrick Motorsports. With such a successful history behind him from TSM, and all this behind him. It looked like a sure success. But it was a failure, so why did it fail?
The Lawsuit That Ended Turner Scott Motorsports
The Ganassi-aligned team was a superteam in and of itself. The team won the 2012 Truck Series title with James Buescher, who moved up to the Nationwide Series to race with the team. They also had great success, with eight total wins, only beaten by their truck series success, where they had eleven total wins, plus three wins in the ARCA series.
Even helping to develop drivers like Kyle Larson, Jeb Burton, Brandon Jones, and Justin Allgaier. But then the owners sued each other, which put the brakes on the whole superteam. Turner Scott’s other co-owner, Steve Turner, accused Harry Scott of owing the team 2 million for a debt he agreed to in 2012, but two years later, he still hadn’t paid.
Scott sued Turner in a North Carolina court soon after. But the suits wouldn’t last long. As Harry Scott won the lawsuit against Turner, Scott took the remaining equipment from the team to start HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi.
Harry Scott’s Attempt At A NASCAR Superteam
It wasn’t only HScott’s beginnings that showed Harry Scott’s ambitions to become a NASCAR superpower. In 2015, HScott collaborated with Chip Ganassi again to run the No. 42 Xfinity team together, which did actually win with Kyle Larson in the finale. However, the partnership would end after 2015.
Where Harry Scott showed his ambition, and the series where HScott was actually a superteam was the K&N Pro Series East, which was also in partnership with Justin Marks, who now co-owns Trackhouse. They won the 2015 title with future Hendrick star William Byron and his Liberty University sponsorship, establishing themselves as a fourth-tier superteam.
The team would include future Cup driver Justin Haley, who Braun Auto Group sponsored. Scott Heckert finished second in the points, while Rico Abreu, fresh from his Chili Bowl win, joined the thriving team. Bringing his sponsors, Accu-Doc Solutions and GoPro Motorplex.In 2016, they signed on Harrison Burton, the son of former driver Jeff Burton, who began driving the No. 12 DEX Imaging Chevy.
HScott also signed promising dirt drivers Tyler Dippel and Hunter Baize. But along with the Cup team, the K&N East Series superteam would also shut down due to a lack of viable driver/sponsor options for 2017. This showed how massive a priority sponsorship was, which, of course, is essential for starting any kind of superteam.
Living and dying by the sponsorship dollars!
HScott Motorsports made sure there was as much sponsorship as possible for a mid-2010s NASCAR team. With the team’s two Cup drivers, Allgaier and Annett, both came with sponsorship. Michael Annett’s father, Harrold, was the CEO of TMC Transportation, which sponsored Michael’s racing efforts. Justin Allgaier was sponsored by Brandt, which he earned by being the best young driver from Illinois. BRANDT’s home state.
This was, on paper, a very savvy move by Harry Scott. NASCAR in the mid-2010s was going through an all-time ratings drop, and full-season sponsorship was something valuable that used to come easily to teams but was now incredibly rare. So, it brought short-term stability to the attempted superteam.
But HScott would become the best example of a struggle many teams have faced before and since. The struggle between sponsorship and development. Annett and Allgaier showed promise in the Nationwide Series; both had top-five points finishes in Nationwide, and Allgaier even earned a few wins. Some of which were even with Harry Scott’s old team TSM.
But while they were fast, they weren’t the fastest and were constantly beaten by those who went on to have success in the Cup Series, like Stenhouse and Austin Dillon. Anyone could see they needed more development, but when you value sponsorship money above all, that becomes something you can figure out later. But could they really?
That was always going to be hard, but it would be even harder on a new team with no veterans to lean on and with high expectations. At this point, they’d have to call Tom Cruise for this mission impossible. So was it a shock that it backfired?
From 2014 to 2015, between them, HScott only got a single top ten, an eighth at Bristol by Allgaier. Never even finishing top 25 in points. By 2016, the team was already on the ropes due to the terrible twos of bad results mixed with ambitious expansion, so in 2016, they went on an all-out push.
HScott’s 2016 Hail Mary Run
HScott tried everything they could to finally establish themselves as the superteam Harry Scott wanted them to be. They cut ties with CGR and aligned with Hendrick Motorsports, the consistently dominant team in NASCAR history.
Their most shocking move, though, was signing Clint Bowyer, which best showed Scott’s superteam ambitions. A driver who almost won the title a couple of times and had a handful of Cup wins. Expect they didn’t really sign him well permanently.
Bowyer really signed with SHR, a real NASCAR superteam to replace co-owner Tony Stewart, but he was on his retirement tour for 2016, and HScott swooped in and got the rights to sign him through a loophole in his contract. His old team, MWR, shut down after 2015, which is why he was a free agent.
The Contract That Changed Everything For Bowyer
According to his contract, Bowyer and his sponsor, 5-Hour Energy, were signed to the #15 car. So HScott flipped the #51 they started with after buying out Phoenix, who used 51 around to 15, and like that, Bowyer and Five Hour Energy were HScott. Plus, there weren’t any good rides open for 2016 from anything close to a superteam, so Bowyer didn’t buy out his deal and decided to rock with them for the year.
While that would result in Bowyer’s career-worst year, it would be HScott’s best in the Series. Bowyer in the HScott 15 had three top tens throughout the year, and heading into the regular-season finale, they were still in contention for the playoffs, though it was a long shot. But that hope was significant.
Scott had used the money from Five Hour Energy to pay off his debts, so if Bowyer got into the playoffs and got HScott those playoff winnings. They could sign a good driver to replace him and rebuild from there, while keeping their young talents to become a superteam in a few seasons. However, HScott’s last hope of becoming the superteam they were aiming to be would be gone when Bowyer crashed with Bayne in Indy. Eliminating him from the playoffs.
HScott’s Shutdown And Legacy
In December 2016, Harry Scott announced HScott’s shutdown to the world, a somber and sobering moment. Ending his dream of a NASCAR superteam, “Over the past several months, I considered a number of options for moving forward with the team,” Scott said in the statement. “Regrettably, there are no viable sponsor/driver options immediately available to allow the team to participate in 2017.”
“I love this sport and being part of it. I invested in NASCAR because I truly believe it represents the best racing competition in the world and the best people in all sports.” Justin Marks hoped their hiatus from the K&N East Series would be temporary, but tragically, the whole racing world would learn how permanent it really was.
At the beginning of August 2017, news began to spread that Harry Scott Jr. had been confirmed dead at the age of 51. This only came months after TSR’s other owner, Stevie Turner, was also confirmed dead.
Justin Marks’ Take On HScott
Team co-owner Justin Marks posted on Twitter: “I know he took tremendous pride in seeing every one of our drivers at HScott Motorsports … realizing their dreams and starting their journey in our cars. Harry loved racing and was truly committed to seeing success across all of his teams.
Without his commitment to the sport, many would not have had the opportunity to ascend to the positions they hold today. My thoughts are with Harry’s friends and family during this difficult time.
“I’ll always remember my first business partner in NASCAR with gratitude, pride, and joy.”Marks is correct: despite his failed superteam ambitions, his legacy can be seen all over the sport today, with Byron and Larson winning races and titles with Hendrick now.
Final Thoughts
Justin Marks used this experience to co-own a legit NASCAR superteam in Trackhouse, Allgaier winning races regularly in the Xfinity Series with JRM, even earning a title of his own, and the likes of Brandon Jones, Jeb, Harrison Burton, and Rhodes, who also drove with them in K&N, being regulars in the lower series.
And all the races and titles he won as HScott’s owner in K&N, plus the Truck and K&N titles he earned as co-owner with TSR, put him in the history books forever. Thanks a bunch for reading!
