Co-owners Justin Marks, Pitbull have themselves a legitimate Cup contender on their hands.
It just may be that Trackhouse Racing is too young and too star-struck by its surroundings to realize how good it is. Where do they think all those victory lane trophies are coming from, the bottom of a Cracker Jack box?
Despite already getting two NASCAR Cup Series winner’s trophies from Ross Chastain—at COTA last month and Talladega last weekend—the first-year team that’s ninth in points isn’t allowing itself the luxury of unleashing some of its swagger from its portfolio.
Team co-owner Justin Marks is so grounded in putting the best driver/crew chief/team on display each weekend that he isn’t even looking ahead to the Playoffs that begin Sept. 9 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. With those two victories in 10 starts this spring, his No. 1 Chevrolet team starring the “Watermelon Man” is a virtual lead-pipe cinch to easily make the 16-team Playoff field.
Pitbull brings attention to his Trackhouse Racing team.
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But Marks—a former middling, part-time, lower-series stock car and sports car driver with strong entrepreneurial connections in the entertainment industry—isn’t ready to acknowledge it.
“I don’t think we begin to have those (Playoff) conversations (yet),” he said after Chastain executed a masterful late-race charge to lead only the last lap at Talladega. “I think we’re here today, and we were where we were after COTA and the races leading up to COTA, because we have a process that works. I think we have to fundamentally stay committed to that process.
“When you start talking about Playoff strategy, how you’re going to mount a run for the championship, that kind of mental bandwidth is reserved for teams that have been there. That’s something that Gibbs and Hendrick and Penske talk about. Trackhouse is so new, we can’t start thinking that way. We have to focus on what we’re doing every week, the execution of what we’re doing that’s putting us in that position.”
But surely Marks and co-owner Pitbull can stick out their chest and crow a little. After all, they strung together four top-four finishes after opening 40th-29th at Daytona Beach-Auto Club. They were third at Las Vegas then second at Phoenix and Atlanta before winning at COTA. Richmond didn’t go well (19th), but Martinsville (5th) did before an engine issue (33rd) sidelined them at Bristol. And in a typical last-lap Talladega shootout, Chastain did everything right on the last lap.
Ross Chastain is a two-time winner and a lock for the 16-car Cup Playoffs.
Jared C. TiltonGetty Images
Like most relatively young teams, crew chief Phil Surgen was cautiously optimistic in his second season with Chastain. (They worked together last year with marginal distinction, as Chip Ganassi was looking to sell his NASCAR property). Before this year, Chastain had only three top-fives in 115 starts; he already has twice that many this year.
“I knew this group of guys had the potential in them,” Surgen said after Talladega. “Whether we were going to get ’em or not is a different story. After the first win and really after the consistency in the top-five, the instances we haven’t finished in the top-five, honestly, it’s been engine, it’s been wrecks. We’ve had strong-performing cars everywhere.
“I have all the confidence in the world in this group that we can build a great team around him. He’s now comfortable in his job and skin, understands and knows this team is being built around him. He can take a breath, be more calculated, not try to get it all right now in this moment.
“The expectation was that we would be here, but it’s happened quickly… very, very quickly. It’s not going to be like this forever. There will be a trough that we go through, times when other teams and other OEMs are strong. We have to build a strong foundation so when those headwinds come, we can navigate them. But we’re not a flash in the pan … we’re not.
“I believe that Trackhouse is here to stay. We’ve arrived, and what we’re doing is investing a lot of money, time, and resources into establishing ourselves as a championship-contending team for decades to come.”
Ten races in, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt about that.
Keyword: Why Ross Chastain, Trackside Racing's NASCAR Success Are Worth Singing About