An Unconventional Nascar Team Owner Finding Conventional Success In The Sport

It wasn’t all that long ago that St. Louis native Justin Marks was best known as just another racecar driver. He raced sports cars and in NASCAR mainly in the lower tier Xfinity and Truck series.

He scored his first (and to date only) win as a driver in NASCAR in the Xfinity series at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car course in 2016. The win came for team owner Chip Ganassi.

By 2020, Marks had transitioned into a new role. He had been part owner of a World of Outlaws team as well as a co-owner of a K&N Pro Series team but by that year had sold both his stakes in those ventures. He decided he wanted to go all in on NASCAR.

In August of 2020, Marks partnered with Ty Norris, a former NASCAR team executive to form a new team; one outside the traditional mold. Marks wanted to use his new team to promote not just products, or brands, but social causes and STEM education. The new team would be known as Trackhouse Racing, and a few months later would make perhaps the biggest splash in NASCAR in quite a few years.

In January 2021, Marks announced that Armando Christian Pérez, better known as Grammy Award winning artist Pitbull, would become a co-owner of the team. It was an unconventional ownership, of a somewhat unconventional new team, at least for NASCAR. A few months later, in June, Chip Ganassi Racing, the team where Marks scored his lone NASCAR win, announced they would be leaving the sport to focus on other forms of motorsports. Marks purchased the Ganassi assets which included not only the equipment needed to field cars, but two all-important charters that would guarantee entry into a race.

With the equipment and charters, Trackhouse expanded from a single car team to a two-car team adding Ross Chastain as driver to team with Daniel Suarez for 2022.

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This season, Trackhouse scored three wins in the Cup series; one with Suarez and two with Chastain. The unconventional team, with an unconventional ownership model, put both cars into NASCAR’s Playoffs competing against the biggest powerhouses in NASCAR like Joe Gibbs Racing, and Hendrick Motorsports.

Despite being somewhat unconventional, the team still needs sponsors to survive. Marks said that hasn’t been an issue, especially this season.

“Winning is the best sales tool that you can have,” the 41-year-old Marks said smiling. “We had a fair amount of inventory on both cars open in 2022 when we started the season.

“I mean, obviously you want to have all your inventory sold before the last race of the previous year, but we don’t necessarily all live in that world, so it is kind of an ongoing journey.”

That journey has been helped a great deal by the wins scored by his drivers and that has brought new sponsor throughout 2022. Marks however, said that’s not the only thing that has helped.

“Not only is winning great,” he said. “But it’s also being able to tell a story in a sport and being part of the story in a sport where there’s a spotlight on you. And what we stand for is teamwork and positivity and opportunity that just resonates with a lot of different companies.

“For where we’re at in the life of our company we are really, really in a great place with all of our partners.”

The teamwork and positivity that attracts sponsors to the team comes from the top. And the unconventional nature of the organization is evident in Marks’ management style. Marks says it comes from experience.

In addition to being part owner in two teams, while he was growing in NASCAR, his career as an entrepreneur was growing as well. In 2012, Marks, along with driver Michael McDowell, opened a karting facility north of NASCAR’s main hub of Charlotte, North Carolina. All those lessons learned are what Marks brings to his team today, though he is quick to point out that for him the learning never really stops.

“I’m learning every day,” he said. “I’m going through something right now in the development of this company where I’m really having to look at my management style and as we grow this organization and talk to new people about coming in it’s obviously a question that I get.

“Where I’ve got an advantage is that I’ve lived, as a driver; I lived on the floor of these companies for many, many years. I was very plugged into many different cultures and different race teams and how employees felt like they were valued and the places where they were happy and the places that they weren’t so happy.”

It’s a management style that resonate with his drivers as well.

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“He thinks a lot outside of the box,” Daniel Suarez said. “He’s not concerned or scared of going right when everyone else is going left, so I really like that about him. He’s doing a great job with Trackhouse. He’s not just building a powerhouse in Trackhouse, but he’s building a brand. That’s exactly what he told me when Trackhouse was only on a piece of paper.

“It’s very nice to be involved with people that are putting their thoughts and ideas into reality.”

Marks said that entire experience has been a great tool for him in developing a management style that has proven so far, to be very successful. For him it’s mainly about supporting, and inspiring, others.

“Because” he said, “If those men and women on the floor in these offices don’t show up at work every day excited about what they’re doing, feeling valued at work and feeling like they’ve got a real opportunity, then, then you’re missing an opportunity to be at your full potential.

“Fundamentally what my philosophy and my passion is: just trying to see as many people happy as possible.”

And while he does own the team, and oversees its employees, his motto is:

“I’m here to help you. What do you need from me today? …and that happens in business operations meetings. It happens when I walk in the paint shop or the fab shop or something. It’s just, what can I do for you, do for you today?”

There are also things such as family nights where he invites the employee’s families to the shop and provides food, music, and fun. Marks considers that just as important as supporting his employees during the workday.

“It’s just really every day trying to make sure that you’re invested in your workforce,” Marks said. “That’s just what I try to do. But I am learning. I am young, I am new at this. And I think it’ll be constant through the rest of my career. “

Suarez was eliminated the first round of the three round Playoff; but Chastain is still alive and could bring the team its first NASCAR Cup title in a few weeks.

Title or not, it’s still been triumphant season for the team. And while his career as a team owner might have started unconventionally, it’s translating into the kind of conventional success that should have Marks and Trackhouse Racing in NASCAR for quite some time.

“As I’ve gotten to know him over the past decade and truly get to know his family on a personal basis,” Ross Chastain said. “-when you meet his mom and dad, and you hear stories of his childhood – they’re just proud of what he’s doing because he’s always had this love for racing.

“Now, he’s not just a race car driver anymore like I know him to be. He’s taking this idea and been successful owning the team. I can’t imagine what that’s like stepping back from being a race car driver and kind of letting go of the wheel, in literal and physical terms; hiring guys to drive your cars and you overseeing all of this other stuff now, but he’s knocking it out of the park.”