Jake ‘The Voice’ Morris along with ‘Slick’ and ‘Hot Rod’ are our next guests on Fan4Racing NASCAR & Race Talk Review at 9 pm ET on Monday, October 28, 2019. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.
In the days leading up to the inaugural eNASCAR Heat Pro League 2019 season, Stewart Haas Racing/SHR executives had one goal in mind – to win the championship. Their simple directive to Team Engineer, Daniel Knost, and Senior Manager Brand Marketing, Jake Morris was to draft two drivers that give them the best chance to dominate and bring home the first eNASCAR Heat Pro League championship. The two SHR team members put together a unique winning strategy to implement their call to action.
While other teams were making draft picks for marketable drivers with a strong social media presence and following, SHR took a different path in choosing their draft picks and taking them aside, they gave them a plan to keep them focused on the task at hand. To keep their drivers free of distractions, they were handed helmets and given legendary character names ‘Slick’ and ‘Hot Rod’ (initials = SHR). All media and social media obligations were conducted by Jake Morris a.k.a. ‘The Voice’ of Stewart Haas Gaming.
For ‘Slick’ and ‘Hot Rod,’ their names were not of any importance and they had no interest in putting themselves out front with the media or in person. Their main passion was finding the fastest track to victory lane. Their number one objective was to fill the trophy case at Stewart Haas Racing.
The Stewart Haas Gaming strategy was a success.
Throughout the season, ‘Slick,’ a.k.a. Gamertag, ‘SHG Slick 14x’ earned four pole awards and three victories managing an XBOX controller/steering wheel for No. 14x. And ‘Hot Rod’ a.k.a. Gamertag ‘ SHG_HotRod_14p’ behind his PlayStation 4 controller/steering wheel for No. 14p secured seven poles and four wins for his part in filling the trophy case at SHR.
The first interview for ‘Slick’ and ‘Hot Rod’ came at their unveiling, during the pre-race broadcast for their final race of the season. As it turns out, ‘Slick’ emerges as Josh Shoemaker 26 years-old from Lebanon, Virginia and ‘Hot Rod’ surfaces as Brandyn Gritton 23 years-old from Kokomo, Indiana. Together they earned seven Division wins and two Team victories taking SHR’s vision to the reality of winning the inaugural eNASCAR Heat Pro League championship
“We put a lot of time and energy into our eSports effort this year, from establishing a brand in Stewart-Haas Gaming to involving our competition department in analyzing the draft to secure the best drivers,” said Mike Verlander, Vice President, Sales, and Marketing at Stewart Haas Racing “It’s very rewarding to see the collective efforts of so many people pay off with a championship. Our drivers certainly delivered, and we’re very proud of what they accomplished in this inaugural season of the eNASCAR Heat Pro League.”
Matching the legends of their character names, the storybook season for Brandyn Gritton and Josh Shoemaker will forever hold the distinction of scoring the very first eNASCAR Heat Pro League championship. A prestigious title that is highly valued and will inspire Stewart Haas Gaming and other racers for years to come.
“I honestly can’t say enough about the two drivers that we chose to represent Stewart-Haas Gaming and Stewart-Haas Racing, in the first eNASCAR Heat Pro League season,” said Jake ‘The Voice’ Morris. “Our staff worked very hard to get this program off the ground, but Josh and Brandyn have been the true backbone this season, as the amount of work that we put into starting this team wouldn’t have meant anything, if we weren’t victorious. Each time I talked to the drivers, they were busy working on setups and practicing for the next race. They knew how much being the inaugural champions of the series was going to mean to Stewart-Haas Racing and all gratitude goes to them for being the perfect ambassadors for our championship program.”
