Ricky Stenhouse Jr. explained why crew chief Kyle Ripper was fired following his and driver Sheldon Haudenschild’s win in the National Open at Williams Grove on Saturday.
As reported by Jeremy Elliott of Sprint Car Unlimited, Ripper, who had been with the team for six years, was fired the morning after winning the race. He shared, “It ended with Kyle Pruitt, the crew chief for [Stenhouse Jr. Marshall Racing] next season, knocking on the cab door when Ripper was about to leave Williams Grove Speedway Sunday morning. Keys were requested and Saturday’s winning crew chief’s tenure was over with the 17 car.”
On top of Ripper being fired, Elliott reported that “the car chief and the tire guy have also quit.” However, he did note that Haudenschild will stay to close out the season.
It was announced back in September that Haudenschild would leave the team at the end of the season and he would be taking Ripper with him. Haudenschild Racing announced, “Looking ahead, Sheldon Haudenschild and crew chief Kyle Ripper are excited to build on their success and focus on the future in 2026.”
— Haudenschild Racing (@Haudenschild_R) September 4, 2025
Stenhouse spoke with DirtVision’s Conner Wade about the firing of Ripper and confirmed that he was fired Sunday morning after the race at Williams Grove, “That for sure is what happened, but this goes back to probably Knoxville time. We kind of heard rumblings of Sheldon and Ripper putting their own kind of thing together. And at the same time Richard [Marshall] started talking about what we wanted to do for our team. I felt for us to give Sheldon the best shot to go win a championship we were looking at making a change at the crew chief position. … We had a lot of inconsistencies so we know to win a championship you have to average a fifth place finish and we haven’t been able to do that. We’ve kind of been fourth in the championship, fifth, sixth, kind of right around that top, but haven’t really broken through to contend for a championship like we wanted.”
“So we heard those rumblings and we kind of got on the look ourselves for a crew chief. Is kind of where we started,” he continued. “And when we talked to Sheldon, he said him and Ripper are moving on at the end of the season. So Richard and I at that point — we didn’t want to blow everything up — so we said, ‘Hey, let’s finish out the year. Let’s go win as many races as possible.’ Obviously, Williams Grove being one of those.”
“But then we hired a crew chief, Kyle Pruitt is going to be our crew chief as everybody knows now. When he was let go from Shark Racing it gave us an opportunity on the NOS Energy Drink 17 team to start preparing for 2026. In this championship we’re not going to catch fourth place, we’re not going to fall back sixth. So 2026 starts now for our team. We’ve got a lot of parts to order, things to get organized. And I can’t put Kyle Pruitt in there to do that with them still racing out of our shop.”
After explaining how the team’s plan was to bring Pruitt in and get him to work right away, Stenhouse shared that the plan was to fire Hammer following Williams Grove regardless. He said, “I was going to call Ripper Saturday night after the race at Williams Grove and tell him, ‘Hey, we appreciate it, but we’re going to do something different’ and then explain to him why. The win happened. It kind of threw a wrench in our plans. I didn’t want to call him Saturday night and do that. So let him celebrate and enjoy the win like they deserved. So we did it Sunday around lunch time. Richard and I called Ripper and he was asleep. He didn’t answer. So we had to get someone to knock on his door to wake him up. He was in the truck still. Definitely not ideally how we wanted to do it. I was hoping he would answer the phone, but I had Cup things I had to do on Sunday so I had a time window that we could get all this done in.”
“But we wanted to get it done so Kyle Pruitt could start working on the car, get it prepared for this weekend, and then any other upcoming issues that we might have. Like with crew guys. ‘Cause we talked to our crew guys as well and we knew they were on the fence of maybe going with Sheldon and Ripper to do their next endeavor. So we knew that when we made this change that was a possibility. And so we’ve got things lined up to move forward. And we just felt like it was best for us and our team. We definitely didn’t wait ’til they won and said, ‘Hey, let’s call them and fire them.’ To my point of view, it’s kind of hard to fire somebody that’s already quit.”
Stenhouse went on to confirm that the crew members, Luke Vaughn and Jayce Warrick have departed the team, “They are going to head out, head back home. Like I said, Richard and I knew that was a possibility and just something that we had to roll with. I think you’ll be surprised by our crew guys for this weekend. I’m excited for this weekend to get going. The crew guys for this weekend aren’t necessarily crew guys that we’ll have for 2026, but they’ll get us through this weekend.”
EXCLUSIVE: @SJMRacing17 Co-Owner @StenhouseJr speaks with @connerwade66 about the Crew Chief change for the @NosEnergyDrink #17 following their National Open victory with the @WorldofOutlaws. As well as the initial steps the team is taking as they look towards the 2026 season. pic.twitter.com/nLL1nbZYJe
— DIRTVision (@dirtvision) October 8, 2025
Wade also revealed he had a conversation with Ripper as well and was offered an interview too, but he declined and indicated he was “at peace with the situation and has no comment at this time in addition to what has already been reported.”
I also had a conversation with Kyle Ripper last night. In respect of fairness, I offered him the opportunity to do an interview just like Ricky. Ripper is at peace with the situation and has no comment at this time in addition to what has already been reported.
— Conner Wade (@connerwade66) October 8, 2025
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