Ross Chastain, driver of the No. 1 Worldwide Express Chevrolet, is congratulated by Trackhouse ... [+]
Nascar team owner Justin Marks wants to be different. It’s not enough that he’s already one of the youngest Nascar owners.
Marks, who co-owns Trackhouse Racing with singer and songwriter Pitbull, wants to change Nascar. Yes, this 42-year-old wants to alter the trajectory of the entire sport.
“The biggest lesson and one that continues to happen is how to exist in this industry as a new team and as a challenger team,” Marks said last weekend at Pocono Raceway. “We’re living around the reaction of the industry. There’s an element of the industry that doesn’t love it because we’re upsetting the traditional model. 23XI is doing the same thing. It’s been an interesting journey to see how the industry is reacting and then continuing to operate strategically in that environment.”
Everything you can think of is different with Trackhouse Racing, including the team’s social media pages, its marketing programs, the sleek look of its racecars, digital advertising on the team’s haulers and more. Even the haulers themselves are one of a kind, boasting a blue underglow with flat black paint and blue chrome.
Marks has also competed in Nascar on a part-time basis as a driver since 2007. He took on the ownership journey in late 2020, when he tabbed Daniel Suarez as the team’s first driver.
Last year, though, Trackhouse emerged as a championship contender with Ross Chastain driving the team’s No. 1 Chevrolet. Trackhouse signed Chastain, known as one of the more aggressive racers, after the team acquired Chip Ganassi Racing in an unexpected deal during the summer of 2021.
“That’s been the single biggest piece of business that this company has done to allow us to do what we’re doing on the racetrack right now,” Marks said. “I got very lucky that I had a relationship with someone in this garage area who was ready to pass the torch. The fact that Chip Ganassi Racing was a key partner with Chevrolet and we maintained that relationship with ECR gives us a huge competitive advantage.
“I go back to the CGR acquisition and I don’t think much of this is possible without that.”
Chastain evidently finished second in the championship battle to Joey Logano last year. His two wins and 21 top 10s made it clear that Trackhouse was a weekly threat. Most of all, it showed that this young organization is succeeding in breaking stigmas throughout the garage.
Things can be done differently, Marks firmly believes.
“In some ways, it’s like watching your kid grow up,” Marks said of Trackhouse’s growth in the middle of its third season. “I continually pinch myself that we’re at this level now with the partners that we have. It seems like it was just yesterday when this was a concept on a white board and this whole Trackhouse thing was just an idea.
“What I think about is I walk around the shop and see 147 people working for this company. I have a lot of gratitude that a lot of people believed in this vision and thought it was possible to have a new team with a unique vision and unique storytelling. I’m learning a lot as we go, but it’s been an incredible three years.”
The team recently reached a new milestone when it announced Anheuser-Busch will sponsor Chastain beginning in 2024. For a third-year team to poach a sponsor that has been involved in the sport for decades shows that Trackhouse and Chastain are thriving.
“When you lay out expectations to start a team – this is a very expensive business to run – and so much of this business relies on corporate sponsorship, the expectations were to go out and tell something unique and be a differentiator from the other teams and add value proposition for our corporate partners,” Marks said of the team’s sponsor lineup. “That has resonated with these brands and they’ve made investments in us.”
While Chastain is locked into the playoffs thanks to a win at the team’s hometrack in Nashville, Suarez is still on the outside looking in. His average finish is more than four positions worse than Chastain through 22 events With consecutive finishes outside the top 30, Suarez has dropped to 19th in points, 34 markers below the cutline with four races remaining in the regular season.
With 147 employees, Trackhouse continues to grow. A large percentage of the team’s employees previously worked with Ganassi, and Marks moved his team into the old CGR shop. However, the team’s corporate offices are in Nashville as part of one of Marks’ ways of doing things differently.
“There’s a lot of opportunities coming out of Nashville for Trackhouse in other industries besides racing that complement our racing activities really well like music, events and consumer packaged goods,” Marks said. “There’s a lot of opportunity because the brand has a lot of momentum. If you invest in these things and you have a race team, you have a branding amplification monster to promote and grow those businesses.”
Marks’ father, Michael Marks, is a founding managing partner of Celesta Capital and served as interim CEO of Tesla
The younger Marks not only owns Trackhouse Racing, but he takes after his father as an investor in the CARS Tour, in Nashville itself and he owns the Trackhouse Motorplex just outside of Charlotte.
Trackhouse’s business model itself is different from other Nascar teams. His team often heads to schools, where they teach students about STEM careers in motor sports. With Suarez — Nascar’s only full-time Hispanic driver — hand-picked as the team’s first driver, the team focuses on educating underrepresented youth across America.
Marks’ initial vision of centering his entire physical operation in Nashville has shifted since his acquisition of CGR.
“We were going to build or buy a facility in Nashville and put an all-points bulletin out to the industry to attract great talent,” Marks said. “I couldn’t just uplift the things that were happening in that building and move it to Nashville.”
On top of shaking things up with the Nashville headquarters, Marks also created Project 91 as a part-time third team to give international stars a chance to compete in Nascar. The project worked so well that Shane van Gisbergen won the inaugural Chicago Street Course, making international headlines as he drives V8 Supercars full time in Australia. Now, he’ll return to compete at the Indianapolis road course in August with reports indicating that he may make a full-time transition to Nascar as soon as 2024.
Marks said, “That’s been the coolest part about it is the reaction from around the world. It gives credibility to the concept of Project 91. Formula 1 is paying attention to it and plenty of companies around the world. It was a great day, and we’re excited to bring him back. I think it would be a great future for Nascar if we have more international drivers telling these great stories to help elevate the sport to more international relevancy. We hope SVG can do that for us.”
Trackhouse has proven to be among the fastest growing teams in Nascar history. Once again, changing the norm with high hopes entering the playoffs this fall.
