• Doug Demmons - The Birmingham News

The last seven years have been a long and difficult journey for

Gene Haas.

Haas made his fortune after founding what has become one of the world's largest machine tool manufacturing companies, Haas Automation. But in 2002 he decided to form a new NASCAR team, which he named Haas CNC Racing.

Most people who start NASCAR teams get their feet wet in the Nationwide or Camping World Truck series. Haas decided to take the plunge straight into the Sprint Cup pool.

"I never really seem to get things right," Haas said at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Thursday, "so I just decided, what the heck, we'll just go for the Cup team."

That turned out to be a mistake. His drivers never did win a race and he struggled to gain acceptance in the NASCAR garage, where people are used to seeing new teams launched with much fanfare only to crash and burn.

"It seems like in NASCAR it takes five years before the people in the garage will even really accept you," he said. "It's almost like you don't really exist until you've been here for a few years and people get to know you and understand that you might survive. Obviously the teams that disappear, we forget about quickly. But it really does take a lot of tenacity and money and time and effort just to survive in this competitive racing."
Three years ago it seemed like Haas' racing team might be one of those that just disappears. He was arrested by IRS agents and charged with tax evasion. He eventually pleaded guilty and in January 2008 he entered a minimum-security federal prison in Lompoc, Calif., to serve a two-year sentence.

That summer Joe Custer, who was running the team in Haas' absence, approached him with the idea of doing something dramatic to turn things around -- calling a Hail Mary play by bringing in Tony Stewart as co-owner of the team.

"We needed to do something in a big way," Haas said. "I kind of told Joe that I don't need to be coming to these races to be running 35th in points. So I told him either we make a change or we turn the place into a truck stop. It wasn't fun to go to the races and lose all the time."

Last November, about the time Stewart was transitioning from Joe Gibbs Racing to the new Stewart-Haas team, Haas was transferred from prison to a halfway house. Two weeks ago he was released.

It was just in time to see Stewart deliver the first victory in the team's history in the All-Star race at Lowe's. And by Thursday Haas was celebrating the team's first-ever pole, delivered by Ryan Newman.

For Haas it's a way to begin to put past mistakes behind him and move on with his life.

"I think probably the biggest thing that comes to your mind is 'Why me, why did this happen to me?' I don't know, I really don't," he said. "Maybe it is a lot like being stricken with cancer or hit by a drunk driver. Your life changes. What you try to do is put the pieces back together as best you can and move on and try to minimize the damage that happens in your life.

"I stood up, I took responsibility for what happened," he said. "We are finally getting them behind me. I just want to get on with my life."

There is precedent within the NASCAR community for that. Rick Hendrick, whose teams have dominated the series, pleaded guilty to mail fraud more than 10 years ago and eventually received a pardon from President Bill Clinton.

Haas had been a sponsor of Hendrick Motorsports and got valuable advice from Hendrick when he started the team. Stewart-Haas today is so closely aligned with Hendrick the drivers almost consider themselves teammates.

But Haas doesn't want to get too involved in the team and mess up a good thing.

"I've never really been a hands-on manager myself," he said. "I don't put my fingers in things. I put a lot of faith in the people I have and then let them run with what they have and see where it goes. For me, personally, that's been pretty successful. As far as how I'm going to put myself back in here in day-to-day operations, about the only thing I'm really qualified to do is open up champagne bottles."

He might just get the chance to test those qualifications this weekend.